response 16 of 76:

Mar 9 16:50 UTC 2002

Is digital radio still under development?  Supposedly it would open up a lot
more stations.

response 18 of 76:

Mar 9 17:31 UTC 2002

Is 106.7 owned by Clear Channel, or is it part of a different national chain?

response 20 of 76:

Mar 9 19:05 UTC 2002

Sindi in resp:16 ::
Just this morning I heard my first ad for the XM satellite digital radio
system on WWJ-AM, so I guess they are now looking for customers 
in the Detroit area.  The ad says they are offering 100 channels, of 
which 71 are music channels; it's a subscription service for $10/month
and the radios, which I believe are oriented towards car use, start
at $300.   The competing satellite radio system, called Sirius, should 
be following imminently.   XM and Sirius are both using their 
diverse selection of music as a marketing angle -- each is offering
3 or 4 classical channels, for example.

If you want immediate gratification: I listened to about 10 hours of 
"digital radio" on various BBC radio channels this week, via 
Real Audio and the Internet.  However, this requires
a high-speed network connection for decent sound quality -- a 56K 
dialup gives a poor-sounding signal which drops out a lot -- 
and I don't think you can run Real Player on a DOS machine, you'll 
need at least Win95.

response 22 of 76:

Mar 9 22:11 UTC 2002

AM 1290 is currently WCAS, and has a "nostalgia" fomat.

response 24 of 76:

Mar 10 00:37 UTC 2002

www.xmradio.com.  Depends what you count as a classical station.  They do have
live performances and commentary and interviews, from NY City.  XMRadio
appears to be Japanese.  There is one 'classics' station with music from the
last 1000 years (which they define as Renaissance to the present) and a VOX
station with classical vocal music (opera to oratorio, they say), plus
something called Pops (sort of classical) and 'Fine Tuning' - a mixture of
classical, jazz, rock and everything else, an oasis of fine listening.  Their
sample program included a lot of modern popular music and Ravel's Bolero as
the non-vocal selection.  I count two classical stations here.  On the regular
radio I still get three.  People with Realaudio can listen to samples of
XMradio offerings.  Do you need separate digital receivers for XM and Sirius?

response 26 of 76:

Mar 11 10:42 UTC 2002

Yeah, it's interesting to see XM finally out-- the buzz had been on it 
for a while now, and yes, it did seem geared to the car market.

response 28 of 76:

Mar 11 16:47 UTC 2002

They have a cable radio thing that is the radio equivalent of cable tv. 
It isnt broadcast but instead comes in on the cable lines that also 
bring the tv. 

response 30 of 76:

Mar 11 17:39 UTC 2002

We went to listen to cable radio at the cable TV company and they did not have
any of the broadcast radio stations, only something created solely for cable
radio use, similar to the satellite digital radio, with about three classical
stations playing selections in random order without commentary.  I was hoping
for stations from various places around the country or even better yet the
world, same as can be gotten now with a computer and dedicated phone line or
DSL line.  
        With three local NPR stations, why have a satellite NPR station?

response 32 of 76:

Mar 11 20:04 UTC 2002

Well, for me, the main appeal of satellite radio would be listening to 
music programming chosen by people for artistic reasons.  

But then, I'm one of a presumed minority of Americans who have 
tuned out commercial music radio almost completely, with the very
occasional exception of the classic rock station in Livingston 
County, as I drive by it.

The point of Sirius and XM, for me, isn't that they are digital, 
or that they are being delivered by satellite: the point is that 
they have found a way to bypass the crushing, unimaginative ad-sales 
mindset which has taken total possession of land-based radio.

It might be useful to remember that the paying customers of 
Clear Channel and the other media corporations are the advertisers;
the listeners are just the product being sold to the advertisers,
and the programming has been relegated to the status of bait.

For XM and Sirius, on the other hand, the paying customers are the 
listeners, so the digital satellite people are going to have to keep
their audience excited and happy.  It's an HBO approach to radio.

(I still dunno if I'm going to buy into their service.  Neither XM
nor Sirius seems to offer a folk music channel which aligns with my 
definition of folk music, and listening to the services at home 
seems to be difficult, and at work, impossible.  The business 
consensus which seems to have developed is that radio has dwindled 
to an in-car medium for most Americans.)

response 34 of 76:

Mar 11 20:18 UTC 2002

I would listen to satellite radio if they played the same things as
non-satellite public classical music stations, of which we no longer have any
local ones.  The non-local ones that you can still get on a radio come in
hissy unless you have a very good tuner and listen in mono.  And I would also
appreciate stations that did not switch from music to news fro 4 pm to 7:30
pm, meaning stations from the west coast (with a 3-hour offset).  And that
did not switch to jazz on weekends, or all play only opera on Saturdays, or
the same canned music from NPR late at night complete with blaring commercials
for other NPR programs.

response 38 of 76:

Mar 11 21:54 UTC 2002

I would assume we would get there eventually; this would have horrible
implications for the multi-billion dollar satellite investments 
made by XM and Sirius.