Tech blogger Dave Zatz reports that the satellite radio service XM has announced that it will start publishing free podcasts of some of its regular programming on Apple’s iTunes.
As someone who listens to an iPod in the car EXCLUSIVELY, I don’t know if this is going to convince me to buy an XM radio. How is someone else’s playlist going to be meaningfully different than the music I already listen to? Is the presence of a “radio personality” an improvement that justifies the cost? Depends on the performer and the content, I guess. A regular DJ just introing music is not, but maybe Bob Dylan is. I haven’t missed commercial radio at all since I started using an iPod almost four years ago, so the same is probably true for XM’s musical programming. And I don’t expect they’re giving away their non-music programming or any of the rest of their premium content.
The XM-Sirius merger will take place in early 2008, eliminating whatever overlap there is between the two services, and hopefully creating an overall-improved programming package where the stronger offerings from one network will replace the weaker offerings of another. At that point, the REAL issue that satellite radio needs to address is whether it’s the least bit relevant in the face of its competition. This recent BusinessWeek article says that the merger “makes sense”, but it does so from an argument that says that satellite radio isn’t worth the effort because of its miniscule market share, so who cares if there’s only one service provider. At that point, I’m not so sure that giving away any programming is viable unless their real intentions are to give up the satellite broadcasting and just be a content provider.
