XM Satellite Radio PRODUCT REVIEW
By BRIAN MCKIM
SHECKYmagazine.com Editor
It was 1994 when I first heard about satellite radio.
We were working at a radio station--you know, a
traditional radio station, or what the
boys in satellite radio derisively call
"terrestrial radio." (And they say
"terrestrial" with a roll of the
eyes, in much the same way that I imagine movie
producers of the 30's did when they referred to
silent movies.)
Oh, sure, I had heard the occasional fanciful
prediction in the previous 30 years about the
possibilities of beaming radio broadcasts from
space. Ever since they broadcast the Pope's
funeral live (Live via satellite!), it
seemed that anything was possible. But possible
and practical are two different things, aren't they?
I mean, radio is different, right? Oh, sure, maybe
they can have satellite radio in the home. After
all, your home just sits there like a lump. But
satellite radio in the car? How do they
think they're going to be able to beam a steady
satellite transmission to a moving automobile? Don't make
me laugh. I'll believe it when I hear it.
Well, folks, believe it.
I know, I know, it's been around for two years now.
Where the hell have we been? (Well, initially at least,
XMRadio was pushing the permanent installation package,
for about $200. We rent cars all the time,
so we were waiting until they put out a portable
unit, which they did, late last year.)
Yeah, yeah, we've been seeing the
commercials, we've been reading the news stories. But
hearing about it and actually being motivated to spend the
jack (about $180, plus about ten bucks a month for subscribing,
when all is said and done) is another story entirely. But
all that was in the rear view mirror when FedEx delivered
our XM Roady unit (with the FM audio adaptor) to our
door. Full disclosure: Through a fortuitous series of
events, we had managed to wangle a unit out of the
boys at XM in exchange for a bit of advertising and
promotion. They saw the wisdom of handing over an
XM Satellite Radio Receiver (Fully activated!) to the
editors and publishers of an online magazine about
standup.
We were just about to embark on a long drive to St.
Augustine, FL. So, we had a perfect opportunity to
test out the XM under battle conditions. It took
me about five minutes to hook it up and get it
operational. We headed south on 295 just after
the evening rush was over. When we stopped nine hours
later, somewhere in South Carolina, we were converted
to the religioin of XM.
I don't envy the boys in promotion at XM. I'm guessing they
down a lot of Tums and swallow lots of anti-anxiety
medication. I can't imagine the intense frustration
they gotta be feeling. Think about it: You've got
what is arguably one of the coolest and most practical
products to come along since the VCR, and you can
easily "nutshell" it and convey the coolness
of it (just like the VCR), and the customer can
certainly understand that it can pump nearly 200 channels
into your car or home (most of it without commercials!),
but it's one of those innovations that doesn't fully
reveal its total, utter coolness until it's in your
lap and your bathing in that vast ocean of programming
that XM delivers. How do you push people over that edge?
How do you finally nudge them from "Golly, that
sounds cool." into "Damn! I gotta have that!"
The current tally of XM subscribers is at about the 2 million
mark. It should be quadruple that!
It will climb. How do I know that? The boys in marketing
probably have a word for it. I know that each and
every XM owner is now walking the earth, glassy-eyed and
dazzled over the wonder and the splendor of that little
glowing box, ready to give a demonstration of his new
little friend to anyone who expresses the slightest
interest. I think it's called "proseletyzing."
(I first heard that word in connection with LSD... that
should give you some idea of what it entails!) The
boys in marketing know that if you just get this baby
into the hands of enough people that, overnight, the
number of owners will mushroom. Kinda like the early
days of stereophonic sound (Remember they usta call
it "Hi-Fi?") or the early days of cable.
We XM owners have a saying: "Get it...now."
To go into a little more detail: We figured that we'd like
it for the comedy programming. After all, we are comics.
And we figured (and I'm sure the boys at XM figured) that
we'd tell our comic buddies (via the magazine and face-to-face)
that the comedy programming was the number one reason to
buy it. But, while the comedy programming is superb (more
about that later), there's a whole lot more that's well
worth recommending.
We are like many comics (and like many civilians) in
that we spend a fair amount of time in our car. And, let's
face it, radio sucks. (Excuse me, terrestrial
radio sucks.) And it has sucked since about 1930 or so.
(Don't give me any of that "Golden Age of Radio"
crap! It's a mass medium that's bound to a schedule--
it sucks inherently! Face it, there's a whole lot of
deadspots in the programming day. And there are commercials!
And, if you're talking about listening to radio in
your car, there's bad reception. And there's SUNDAY!
Sunday is, without any equivocation, the worst day to
be listening to a radio in your car.) So, if you
spend any hard time in the vehicle, and a product
comes along that offers 200+ channels, 24/7, trust me,
there will, from now until forever, be something to
listen to!
Even if (and I'm going down the XM Channel Guide now) I
knock out 3 of the 6 "Decades" channels, even if
I only tune into 4 of the 6 "Country" channels
even if I only occasionally hop onto 2 of the 11 "Hits"
channels, even if I never listen to the 2 Christian
or the 8 "Urban" or the 4 quot;Dance" or the 5 "Latin" or the 2 "Kids" channels,
even if I happen to like only 2 each of the "Jazz," "Rock," and "World" music channels (of
which there are 7, 12 and 5, respectively!), that means that
I have 15 channels that might have something of interest to
me. And I haven't even covered the 11 "News,"
5 "Sports," 10 "Talk & Variety" and
3 "Comedy" channels!
Which brings me to the Comedy channels. There are three.
They are numbers 150, 151 and 152 on the XM dial, labelled
"XM Comedy," "Laugh USA" and "Extreme
XM" respectively. And, if I have this right, they are
supposed to offer (once again, respectively) "the hottest
short segments of standup pulled from thousands of hours
of comedy club gold," or "hilarity without getting
crude or offensive" or "collective madness of
the screwiest, zooiest morning shows." These are
all quotes from
the Comedy page of XM's own website where you can sample
them if you like.
How are they? Surprisingly good. I say "surprisingly"
because, in the rare moments when radio deigns to air
standup, they usually screw it up. (So, too, does
television, for that matter!) But not so on XM. (I
haven't really paid much attention to 152, so I'll
restrict my comments to 150 and 151.) The breadth and
depth of the artists is startling. They feature a
wide array of comics and they tend to play lengthy
clips from each! This is astounding. How many times
have you heard comics chopped into 30-second bites? Sonny
Fox and Joel Haas (the boys in charge of XM's comedy
programming) are the comics' best friends. Of course,
I'm not stupid enough to believe that it'll stay this
way forever (radio is fickle!), but for now, it's a
superior presentation of live standup comedy (with a little
Bob & Ray and studio-recorded stuff thrown in).
And it isn't just an endless parade of Richard Pryor and
George Carlin and Bill Hicks followed by Bill Cosby followed
by Woody Allen followed by more Carlin, Pryor and Cosby. In
the space of a typical hour, you might hear Bob Newhart, Margaret
Smith, Mitch Hedberg, Dwight York, Alan King, Adam Sandler,
Phyllis Diller, Lord Carrett, Tim Wilson and Jim Gaffigan.
It's a veritable encyclopedia of recorded standup comedy.
No insistence on the big names! No "themed" blocks!
No bleeps! No commercials! No snarky deejays who wish
they were comedians making snide comments and speculating
on the mental health of comics in general.
And Haas has assured SHECKYmagazine.com that he is
constantly reviewing recordings of contemporary (and not
necessarily wildly famous) comedians and considering their
snippets for broadcast. ("Bottom line for submitting
CD's-- if it's funny, it has a home on XM," Haas says.)
To put it another way, everybody, from Richard Pryor on
down to, well, me or you, dear reader, has
a chance of showing up in the rotation. Send CD's or
other suitable recordings to him at:
Joel Haas - Comedy Director
XM Satellite Radio
1500 Eckington Place NE
Washington DC 20002
(202) 380-4394
How are the other channels? Tremendous. As concerns
the music channels, I say this: The PD's at
all the terrestrial outlets should be looking for
other work. Their counterparts in satellite are
doing what they thought they'd be doing when they
majored in radio in college 20 years ago when they had
a full head of hair. Without an ad sales team breathing down
their necks, the folks who call the tunes at XM are
probably among the happiest and most fulfilled people
in radio--they're doing what PD's usta do. And doing
it well. As for the news, talk, information and sports,
the variety is almost overwhelming and there's always
something to listen to. (Some of them are merely
simultaneous satellite re-broadcasts, so there are
gaps where they cut out the commercials, but I'll take
a few moments of silence over another Glucosamine and
Chondroitin commercial! And, in many cases, they
substitute XM-commissioned programming for commercials.
Stuff like technology minutes or movie reviews--a minor
annoyance.)
Technically speaking, it's a dream to set up. We had only
one or two incidents where things got a little crackly. Once
while passing Manhattan in northern Jersey, and another time
in, of all places, rural North Carolina. We used the nifty
FM gizmo that plugs into the cigaretter lighter and pumps
the XM signal through space and into your car's FM radio (Oh,
the cruel irony! Your FM radio becomes Satellite Radio's
bitch!) We requested a Roady because we frequently
rent cars and we wanted to be able to take the whole affair
from our "home car" to a rental, back to the
house, etc. (We hear that there's a kit available that
makes it possible to use the Roady in the house! We
can't wait to get that!) The Roady unit,
about the size of a deck of cards
(but infinitely more useful and entertaining!), displays
the current channel number and name and the name of
the artist and the name of the song! (Or, in the case
of the comic, the name of the bit!) And here's a
real kick: While you're listening to, say, Channel 151,
you can thumbwheel around and see what's playing on
the other 199 channels without leaving 151! I'll
let that sink in. It's deceptively spectacular. Say
you're listening to Brian Lamb's Book Notes on the C-Span
Radio channel (#132) but you're curious as to who's playing
on XM Comedy. No problem! Just scoot on over to 150, see
the words "XM Comedy" and note the words
"Margaret Cho" under that, and not miss one
word of Book Notes!
It's a little tricky to hook up the antenna, but I got
the hang of it pretty quickly. It's really just a
powerful magnet the size of a pack of dental floss that
goes (ideally) in the middle of your car's roof. Once
you thread it through the weather stripping and plug
it into the Roady, you're good to go! 200+ channels,
in digital quality, pumping through your car's (or Budget's
or Hertz's car's) sound system! A tear comes to the
eye!
If you want to check out prices, next time you're in a
Wal-Mart, go to their electronics section and there'll
probably be an endcap with a bunch of Roady units and
accessories kits at decent discounted prices. Activation
is a snap and, if you activate it online (as opposed to
over the phone), they waive a setup fee!
A couple of years ago, we quit getting cable. Because
of our schedule, we weren't getting our money's worth.
When we first heard of XMRadio, we figured that, as soon
as they worked out the portablility issues, it would make
a lot of sense for us--more sense than the old "terrestrial"
cable! We were right! Attention comedy world: Lose your
cable! Get XMRadio! (Of course, if you can afford both,
God bless you!)