Once again the NYPost's ability to infer something through their headlines completely amazes me.

Part two of Motley Fool's interview with XM CEO Hugh Panero, we cover the MLB and Howard Stern. Part one was yesterday, and tomorrow we'll get part three. I'm biting my nails in anticipation.

Billboard Radio Monitor has a curious point about the looming "Content War" between XM and SIRIUS. Sure, deals like Martha are great PR, but create an "uneasiness among investors that the nascent industry is still in the midst of an expensive programming content investment battle."

The rest is pretty much Analyst babble-speak by Banc of America Securities analyst Jonathan Jacoby, but other interesting points are the "hardware wars" that inevitably will be coming down the pipe (woohoo!).

Here's how I see it. There's 3 main factors that make people choose XM vs SIRIUS - price, hardware, and content. The price question got solved when XM upped their rates. Hardware? Well, Sirius is catching up with the Starmate and the upcoming ReGo, but XM is definitely still in the lead in that department, especially with the Tao XM2go and the Pioneer AirWare arriving in stores in the upcoming weeks. But most customers are so damn confused between what's good and what's not, that it takes someone who's already accustomed with Satellite Radio to even know the different between a Roady and a Sportster. Personally I think the "Hardware Wars" will have more to do with price than they will with technology - others probably disagree.

But Content. That's where it's at, and that's where it'll always be at. Big names bring big recognition, but with big pricetags. And when we have the Sports and Politics categories flip-flopping between each provider (and more flip-flopping to come I'm sure), then that makes it all that more fun to watch. :)

The Motley Fool has a great two part interview with Hugh Panero. Today is the first part, part deux comes tomorrow.

Very interesting read! Highly recommended.

Apparently the Wall Street Journal has an article on Satellite Radio, Tuning In Beyond Cars, which details the satellite radio industry (and happens to mention Orbitcast). I don't have a WSJ account, but I'm gonna run out and grab a copy of the journal right now.

UPDATE: A reader sent me the spinnet from the article where we're mentioned. It's also in the print April 27, 2005 WSJ edition on page D4. Very cool. Thanks.

There are few resources for comparing the quality of shows on the two systems, although a few Web sites are starting to tackle the issue. The site radio.about.com3 offers a guide to each service, although some information is out of date. Orbitcast.com 4 has an "XM versus Sirius" link where readers post comments.

:)

Combine the iPod with Satellite Radio, and you get "the killer ap" - that's the premise of this ground-breaking article on CNN Money. In a feature that can only be called - "super" - CNN Money delves into the wacky crazy thought of Satellite Radio being combined with the iPod (who'da thunk it?!).

First, we throw around Sirius being in talks with Steve Jobs, then we name-drop Sony and Motorola. Oh, but wait, let's just add Creative and Dell into the mix (just so we get picked up by all the newswires) and then let's come with the fantasic insight that XM has been chit-chatting with these folks as well. Oh my!

No wait, hold on, let's have the true dose of wisdom we all need. Ready for it? Ready? Hold on to your seats kids, cause here it is. And I quote...

"Everyone's talking to everyone,"

WOOHOO! Shit. There goes the doubts I had. Here I thought that no one was talking to anyone. Could XM or SIRIUS have come up with partnering with an MP3 player on their own??? naaahhh.. that's just too stinkin' smart.

Oh right, anyway.
We continue to babble on about how Satellite Radio + MP3 is inevitable. But then we flip-flop and say that satrad technology is too big (oh yeah, it's friggin huge). Then we flippidy-flop again and say that a wireless iPod is the natural evolution, and XM/SIRIUS provide the best infrastructure. But then we flip-flop yet again and profess about how Apple definitely has something up their sleave such as a subscription product.

In the end, we learn nothing. Gotta love the media. (sigh)

CBS Sportsline wrote a great feature about how the author's iPod has been abandoned because of Satellite Radio.

Poor iPod sits on a shelf, her battery uncharged, her playlists unsampled, as I've surfed my way through hundreds of channels on XM and Sirius. In truth, iPod prepared me for satellite radio...

Registration is required (14 days are free), but there's 5 more pages of good reading comparing XM vs SIRIUS in a nicely detailed and in-depth read.

Fool.com goes into detail about the XM / Akamai deal. Some nice thoughts in there about the relationship between XM, Akamai, Time Warner, and Apple.

Satellite Radio:
"It is the greatest thing ever."

In the war between XM vs SIRIUS, the boys at the Boston Herald duke it out.

Interesting that the doom and gloom prediction of "they will either merge, or one will go out of business entirely, or one or both will end up in bankruptcy and a restructuring will occur," was made.