Orbitcast

YES! Happy dance commence!

Yuck....just awful. What a waste of bandwith.

They take away Liquid Metal but they add this channel.

Japanese is an interesting choice. I thought Chinese would be better (I'm biased though).

I wonder if they're targeting the Japanese American population or if they figure JPOP is mainstream enough to appeal to everyone (or at least a sizeable amount of people).

Removing Liquid Metal was definitely a sin. Can't agree more.

What's the point of providing language-specific channels for a service that requires you to speak/read English when signing up? I'm not bashing XM - The Spanish language channels on Sirius are a waste as well.

Liquid metal is not god; morever, just a music genre like rap or jazz.

As for Radio Wasbi, I think after the failure of C-Wave and Radio Taj, this channel will be a mix of english and japanese as so those who speak english can understand the music better.

A plus for XM.

"What's the point of providing language-specific channels for a service that requires you to speak/read English when signing up? I'm not bashing XM - The Spanish language channels on Sirius are a waste as well."
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I couldn't disagree with you more. The Japanese and Hispanic population is huge in the US. By providing specific channels for these ethnic groups opens up markets that XM would otherwise miss. I think it's a great move.

A very weak response to Sirius' BBC Radio 1 and Adam Curry's podcast show. Wasn't there a lot of Sirius bashing when they announced the podcasting by the XM folks?

Not sure what you mean, and I wonder if I wasn't clear about something. The podcasts by Radio Wasabi will be independent from the XM Satellite Radio program. This is simply bringing JPOP nationwide through satellite radio.

As for the bashing, it sorta seems inevitable. Both sides of the camp are very protective of their services. Nothing we can do to get around that (for the time being).

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

Everyone seems to read WAY too much into this. First, this obviously looks to be done by people not with XM but a 3rd party. Second, since there is no channel assignment or official press release on this, then this looks to be still in works and not final. Third, regarding the 'alot of announcements in July' matter that is probably in regards to their project. Finally as to why Japanese programming, since there is a huge market in anime, manga, video games and other Japanese entertainment wouldn't it make sense to have a radio channel devoted to this? But at this point all we have is alot of speculation.

I don't understand why XM would remove Liquid Metal but add this J-Pop channel. Is there a bigger market for J-Pop fanboys? Anyways ill just keeping listening to Hard Attack on Sirius for my metal needs.

Here's something to consider. This new J-Pop channel doesn't have a channel number assigned to it yet. I think that means something.

I'm really curious about what this 'big' announcement in July is going to be all about. Perhaps we're going to see a new way of splitting the bandwidth to allow for more specialized channels? J-POP is definitely highly specialized. So perhaps this is a sign of a more vertical agenda?

I'm sure XM hasn't ignored the fact that many are annoyed with XMLM being taken off the air. A lot of people were really upset by that. I have a feeling that all the specialized channels are going to come back with this announcement in July.... but until then it's all just speculation.

What if XM will introduce new receivers that have, say, a hard drive, and can record "niche" formats like this off of 24/7 channels for later playback "on demand"? What I'm thinking here is that maybe the Radio Wasabi channel won't actually be "live" or even broadcasting 24/7, but would be sent out 4 hours a day on a 24/7 channel, with the other 20 hours serving similar niche formats. Receivers could then store all the formats, or possibly only the ones that each customer has an interest in, then playback on demand.

Of course, if XM has found, say, a new codec, or a new bandwidth utilization technique, that will allow many more 24/7 formats, of course I'd be in favor of that as well.

Hahahahahah!
You guys better start getting used to the idea that people want foreign content on their XM. Canada & now Japan!

enough with liquid metal! go online to listen to it, since you have the time to post replies here.