Tech Q? Satellite Radio... Continued!

We've been talking about "digital radio" in all it's forms lately on Tech Q. Last week I explained a bit about what satellite radio was, some of it's advantages and disadvantages, what audio formats the two incompatible (XM and SIRIUS) systems use, and a bit about the recent difficulties the business has faced.

Today we'll take one more look at satellite radio in North America to talk about possible future directions and my own impression of the sound quality.

Sound Quality

I've never heard Sirius Satellite Radio so can't comment on how it sounds. I have heard XM radio a number of times when we've rented a car.

We don't listen for long. My wife (who is a visual artist with no audio background) and I can never listen for long. Sure, it's a riot to laugh along with the kids sitting in the back of the car to the unbelievably appalling 1970's pop songs you haven't heard since you were their age. But the sound? How to describe it? Fuzzy, lacking in clarity and definition, synthesized. When a cymbal crash happens you don't hear a stick hitting metal, just a vague wash of high frequency sound. I experience queasiness. My wife describes it as a grating sound.

There is one exception to this sonic sadness on the XM service. That is a station called Sirius XM Pops "Classical Pops XMHD". The HD designation has no connection with HD Radio by the way. (Holy consumer confusion Batman!) On XM the HD indicates that this channel is using a higher data rate. How high, I don't know, but the audio results are significantly better.

In our experience as soon as we switch to the XMHD station we both relax. Ahhh, those sound like real violins! The quality of the sound no longer grates on the ears. The music is another story. Unfortunately Classical Pops is not our cup of tea!

If we're in range of a decent FM station we switch to that. If not, we pull out the CDs. Or drive without music.

You may heard that Sirius offer higher sound quality at a premium price. And so they do . . . but only via their internet streaming service. Remember that there is one, fixed-size "pipe" full of data beaming down from the satellite. To raise the sound quality on one station they would have to lower the quality on another or drop one all together.

I'll admit that I'm overly fussy about sound quality. Your mileage may differ. Clearly what people are buying is convenient access to a broad range of programming.

Luxuries and Necessities

The satellite radio industry in North America clearly faces some business challenges. They need to continue adding subscribers in hopes of some day paying off their debt and perhaps making some money. The current economic situation means that new car sales are down - cars with built-in satellite radios that might have tempted more subscribers - as are luxury items.

And look at this recent study done in the United States for the National Retail Federation's Stores magazine. (Thanks to Audio4Cast for the link.)

"When asked to rate items that were most expendable, luxury was high on the list: High-end handbags (92.2%), satellite radio (90.9%), specialty shopping for apparel (90.7%), cosmetics (90.7%), maid service (90.0%) and facials (89.8%) are all on the chopping block."

Meanwhile

"The Internet stays--with 80.9% of respondents describing that service as untouchable, along with cell phones (64.1%), cable TV (60.5%) and discount shopping for clothing (43%.)"

Wow. Internet access is no longer considered a luxury. In fact it looks much more like a necessity . . . well ahead of cell phones and cable TV.

Now the internet is by no means everywhere yet. But you can get better sound on internet radio, and you can get it for free.

Possible Paths Forward

From my (perhaps limited) view, Sirius XM Radio appear to have two principal assets. One is the brand and content for over 100 channels of 24/7 radio. The other is the satellites blanketing North America and the data stream those satellites can deliver.

Might those satellites be used to deliver other types of data? Or might the radio content be sold to more subscribers who would receive the signal in other ways, for example, via the internet?

Mark Ramsey of Hear 2.0 has as good a grip on the radio broadcast industry in the US as anyone. A couple of his recent posts offer some clues as to what may lie ahead. Immediately after the merger (in the US) of XM Satellite Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio he suggested we take a close look at the name of the new company: Sirius XM Radio, Inc. The word "satellite" is no where to be seen.

In a more recent article he lays things out a bit more clearly, but still teases us. He says satellite radio has lots of fans but that most of them are after non-music content. I'm doing a bit of interpolating here but I think his position is that with the abundance of music available perhaps it's the talk radio content which gives satellite radio its a competitive advantage. Now the tease:

"Will satellite radio always be a real-time stream of content pushed down from on high with no ability for you to interact with it or customize it?
I happen to know that the answer is 'no'.
Will you soon be able to customize your satellite radio content without buying a new radio?
I'm not saying".

I'll close this post the same way I closed the last one: This story is a long way from over.

As always, the opinions I express in Tech Q are my own and not those of the CBC.

- Peter Cook
(Thanks to Sputnik for the tip about Peter's byline!)