Note: I am not a representative for Sirius Radio. The opinions expressed are my own drawn from my own experiences using the Sirius digital satellite radio service. This page is intended primarily for those considering purchasing a satellite radio or using the Sirius Radio service. I am not selling anything, in contrast to some other "review" sites.

NOTE: The Sirius Radio subscription that Customer Service buffaloed me into has finally expired. I am no longer a Sirius Radio subscriber. This page will not be updated, and some information may become incorrect. I will continue to leave it up at the request of visitors' feedback. Look for a review of XM Radio's service here in the future.

Is it For You?

  A satellite radio service is great if you live in a rural area with limited FM station choice, or if you drive long distances and prefer radio to CDs. Or maybe you want to listen to something besides music when you drive, like news or sports. It would be a perfect addition to an RV. If you despise commercials or really like a particular genre or sub-genre of music or don't want to shell out a lot of cash for CDs, then it becomes attractive. Boaters also would like being able to hear a wide variety of music when away from shore. If you have cable tv, then you probably already have similar music choices included in your package (e.g. MusicChoice), but you may intrigued by the news and talk programming. If you have Dish network satellite access, then you'll already find Sirius Radio available to you, at least at home. Personally, I like listening to a wide variety of music and find the prospect of buying enough CDs to satisfy my tastes financially daunting, so the Sirius service is cost-effective for me. It's also nice when people come over who have musical tastes that don't match my music collection. Those who already use iPods on their car and home stereos and like their available selections would probably not be excited by Sirius Radio for the music programming. If you frequently swap mp3s and burn your own CDs, you probably wouldn't like the analog-only outputs and would find it an expensive alternative to the Net. Those looking for quality Spanish-language programming should give it consideration. If you don't have a broadband Internet connection to access the various Internet stations, then you might be interested in a satellite radio service. There's ample appeal for news junkies, but much of this programming is also available on the Net.

Hardware

My only experience is with the Kenwood tuner I have (KTC-H2A1). You need a separate docking unit (either one for a car or one for the home), and the tuner is useless without it. The tuner is designed is slip in and out of the docking unit, so you can take it out of your car, for example, and use it on your home stereo without re-doing the wiring and such. I've only used the home docking unit. It comes with a DC power supply, RCA cables to go in your stereo inputs, and an allegedly weatherproof antenna with a long cable.

The manual says in my area I need to have an antenna on the roof, but this isn't true. I'm on the top floor of a three story condo building, and I can get a full-strength signal pretty much anywhere through the ceiling. When you first set it up, before you get a subscription, the tuner works on one channel. This is a promotional channel for Sirius, and you can try different antenna setups and check the signal strength to help you decide if you should take the thing back or not. The antenna itself is small and unobtrusive, and can be held to a wall or window casement easily with small wood screws, or just set it on a table or shelf. I find that I have to make slight adjustments to the position of the antenna every twelve hours or so. Keep this in mind before you make any permanent antenna installation.

The tuner is okay for the money, but has some downsides. The output is strictly analog; no optical conections or digital-to-digital recordings are possible. It has 24 presets, but they're divided into four "banks", so you always have to remember which preset bank you're in. If the tuner is close enough to you that you can read the screen, then you probably don't need the remote. The smarter way for this to be set up would be to have a remote with an LCD screen. The way it is, you have to get up and stand in front of the tuner to read the song lists or names. The screen tells you what channel (stream) you're on, the track name, the artist name, current time and the stream name. The tuner has an alarm that tells you when a song you marked as a favourite comes up on any channel, but the alarm is really feeble. If the stereo is on at all, you probably won't hear it. The tuner also gets very warm to the touch. Since the docking unit is sitting on a table or shelf or something, whenever you push one of the buttons on the tuner you have to hold the tuner so it won't topple over, and it's warm enough so that you don't want to do that very often. If you want to listen to a channel that isn't on your presets, you either have to use the remote (DIRECT key) or go up or down through all the channels on the tuner controls. There's also a two-second gap when you change channels, but this is true for any satellite radio tuner. The satellite also provides the tuner with constantly-updated current time, if you consider that a particular plus. It's possible to listen to the tuner without hooking it up to the stereo by plugging headphones into the output jack of the tuner, but you'd have no volume control.

  There are new home tuners now that have FM modulators, allowing you to play Sirius Radio through your FM receiver, at the price of sound quality. These allow for cable-free connections, even in cases where a "boombox" might not have an input jack.

The Programming

The music "streams" are 'commercial-free'. There are fairly frequent promo tags for Sirius that last about 2 or 3 seconds. There are also DJs ("stream jockeys") that speak now and then, mostly giving you the names of the tracks, artists, albums you just heard and adding historical or relevant notes (e.g. the band is touring, the artist has a new CD out, etc.), but it's usually tasteful and brief. The sports and talk radio streams and network news feeds have commercials, of course. I've been taken to task by some over my use of the word "commercials", with "promo" being their preferred term. Once you explore the other (non-music) channels, you will hear public service announcements, pitches for products sold by Sirius, and promos for the feeds, such as ESPN. The old-time radio, commercial news and sports feeds, weather feeds and Disney channel also have real, plain old commercials. Sirius has a "features" stream, and that has commercials on it. And there's also the Sirius promotional channel that works even without a subscription, and that's 100% ads for Sirius. With the exception of the sports feeds from the venue locale, you can't get other local FM-type radio stations from different parts of the country. The programming is the same all over the country, so don't expect it to be customised to your region.

  An interesting channel is the World Radio Network (WRN), which has English programming from the shortwave services of a dozen or so countries, and a separate channel for the BBC. There's at least five streams in Spanish, including BBC in Spanish and a sports stream. The music streams are diverse enough to appeal to just about anyone's tastes. There's two Christian channels (Xtian rock and gospel), and a few religious spoken-word channels, if this is where your interest lies. Also included are 13 rock streams and a stream each for the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's on top of that. Five streams each for country, hip-hop, jazz and "dance". The sole reggae channel is very contemporary, so if you lean toward the older stuff you'll be disappointed. There are two comedy streams: one is adult-oriented, and the other is "clean". Both are pretty entertaining, but suffer from repetition. The classical selections are novel in that they include a lot of 20th century material.

I should note that XM Radio  moved to a similar  music 'commercial-free' format in 2/04. This should definitely be a factor in your consideration between the two services.

The strongest programming is found in cases where Sirius Radio merely acts as an outlet for content produced by others, such as NPR, BBC, the network news and talk programmes, and sports.

  The weakest programming on Sirius, however, is found on the music streams. Sirius appears to strive to play familiar music within a genre, thus avoiding the 'discomfort' of hearing something you may have never heard before. Sirius partisans would like potential subscribers to believe that listeners are only missing out on weird, terrible songs by bands no one has ever heard of. The reality is that what is lost are the songs by popular artists that did not make it to "hit" status, largely due to marketing on behalf of the record labels. The music industry selects which songs on a given CD will be the "singles", and these are the songs the public is exposed to on commercial FM, which is what makes them "familiar" in the first place. So, for example, you will hear "Wonder" and "Carnival" by Natalie Merchant, but you won't hear "Where I Go", which is on that same disc. The result is considerable repetition, as they try to appeal to the widest possible audience by playing only the most popular material. Doesn't this sound like what commercial FM does? Sirius is basically letting the music industry define their playlists, while presenting the programming on Sirius Radio as something bold, diverse, and "revolutionary".

  Sirius partisans point to the manic obsession with "the hits and only the hits" as a feature to draw subscribers. The fact that they soon tire of the same fare is presumably offset by their reluctance to switch to XM or forget the whole thing entirely once they've purchased a tuner. In other words, they are "suckered". In my opinion, anyone willing to pay for the musical programming on a radio service has an appreciation of music beyond hit singles, but Sirius Radio is a lap dog to the music industry that has created the situation potential subscribers are trying to escape. This seems to be a conscious decision on the part of Sirius Radio, and they are even less open to comments on the depth of their playlists than any other subject.

  The issue is no longer "is there a great deal of repetition in the Sirius playlists?". Among subscribers, it's now an issue if repetition itself is "bad" or not, and if it is, then is any criticism of sacred Sirius acceptable or not. Partisans prescribe more frequent channel changing and exploring genres you think you don't like as the "solution" to the dreary limitations of the programming.

  In general, you will find a far more diverse and deep music playlist on XM Radio. If this is where your interests lie, then it should definitely be a factor in your choice between the two services.

The stream jockeys are inoffensive and knowledgable, for the most part, but you really don't hear them that much to distinguish between them or develop a preference for a particular jockey. Sometimes they sound like they're not even awake as they mumble and try to focus enough to read the song list. On other streams, however, you'll find very chatty jockeys who believe everyone is fascinated with the minute details of the New York City "scene". And since when is NYC the "Capitol of Rock and Roll", as Sirius claims? The capitol of the music industry, maybe. Sirius makes very little distinction between the two, as is made clear by their playlists.

Besides the Disney channel, there's also one kids channel. The Kenwood tuner can lock out whatever channel you'd like to keep children away from. A four digit code unlocks them for adult use.

Other streams include folk, soul, world music, bluegrass, swing, show tunes, symphony and chamber music, latino/mexicana, and a gay/lesbian talk radio stream. If you like talk radio, you have at least five streams to choose from, including a right-wing and a left-wing stream. Howard Stern is due to begin broadcasts in January 2006.

  Sirius Radio has played the sports card heavily, believing for some reason that fans would prefer to listen to games on the radio rather than watch them on TV. Games are even online these days, downloadable to listen to at your convenience. There are, of course, situations where watching TV is impractical, but it seems a poor basis to lay your programming on. Radio is much more suited to talk, news, and music. There is also a 30 second delay on the audio, so if you have the satellite tuner on with the TV sound down it will seem very weird.  In contrast to their image as the "sports" service, Sirius Radio has now lost all live baseball coverage, since ESPN Radio lost satellite rights. XM Radio just announced they will carry all live baseball games (at no extra charge) next season. The Sirius partisan sour grapes consensus is in, and they have concluded that baseball is boring, unpopular, and for the elderly - unless Sirius Radio would have won rights to the sport, in which case it would have been a thrilling, irresistable draw for new subscribers. Shills indeed. There is significant programming beyond live games, in the form of pundits' babble, and these shows are repeated again and again to fill the time slots between games. If this seems like a "draw" to you, just record the pre and post game shows of the football game you listen to and play it three or four times. See how fascinating it is. Then burn thirteen dollars and tell yourself it's worth every cent to stay on top of what's happening.

  You can request a song online, but they seldom play requests, unless it's something they already play - or overplay, in the case of Sirius Radio. They have a call-in option where you can choose from a selection of overplayed material. In the cases where they do play requests, it's often a case of playing the band you requested, not the song.  Each music stream has a page on the Sirius.com website with a webform to make requests or comments. It would be nice if they allowed SMS or email requests for those on the go, but they don't. If you want to ask about a certain track or artist, it's helpful to know the stream jockey's name or at least the time and date you heard it when you contact the stream. Don't get your hopes up, however. Interactivity is not their strong suit. Sirius Radio "knows" what you want to hear, anyway, even if you think otherwise. They're weird like that.

  Sirus has now added an all-Elvis channel. In spite of the obvious potential for repetition and burn-out, Sirius partisans are hailing this as a move that will attract subscribers. Some are frank enough to state that, even though the shine will come off quickly, these new subscribers will "stick around". This is the philosophical basis for virtually every programing decision at Sirius Radio: yes, it's mediocre, repetitive, derivative, and unsustainable, but subscribers are too lazy to switch to XM Radio or cancel their subs. Sirius Radio seems to be counting on the failure of their new subscribers to objectively analyze the programming once they have "taken the plunge". Does this encourage you to gamble your money on them?

  Sirius has now be added "Shade 45", which has some kind of unclear connection to Eminem. Being a rapper, somehow Marshall Mathers knows a lot about programming a national radio channel. Actually, aside from lending his name to the endeavour, it's quite vague what his involvement is. The music industry term for this phenomenon is "hype".  Realistically, the channel is just a marketing outlet for Interscope Records, which is not nearly as exciting in a press release.  The promos gush that the stream is "uncensored", when in fact none of the streams on Sirius are censored. Again, hype, and again, an attempt to sucker potential new subscribers by deceptively promoting the stream. There is a great deal of obscene language on this stream, however, and it seems obligatory that all material must be "offensive" in order to be considered for the playlist. To accommodate this change, Street Beat 44 has become history.

Sound Quality
  Some websites that sell Sirius tuners actually bill the audio on Sirius Radio as "CD quality", which is ridiculous. The tuners themselves use such cheap components that crossover distortion and frequency range are sore points, but the dynamic range of the signal itself is unimpressive at best. Sirius tries to punch up some frequency ranges, but it really just makes the whole thing sound artificial. Most noticeable is the lack of dynamic range, and in this regard it compares unfavourably with even FM. While you don't have the static of AM or the pilot tone hiss of FM, there's more to sound quality than noise levels. If you think your FM stereo sounds really good, then you should be reasonably satisfied (but not impressed) with the audio quality on Sirius. If, however, you are expecting your Sirius Radio tuner to give you at least 128kbps MP3 quality, then you'll be disappointed. It's not even worth recording.

The Pound of Flesh

The monthly subscription rate is $13, with discounts for longer-term subs. At the monthly rate, it comes out to about $.02/hr, but the value all depends on how much time you spend listening to music or radio. If you spend 5 hours a week in your car and home listening to the radio, then it'd be about 65 cents an hour, which is not insubstantial for something that might be available for free on FM or the Net. The monthly rate is a little high for what you get, in my opinion, but they might add new channels in the future to make it a better deal. Alternatively, they could cut your favourite channel out and you'd have no recourse, so consider the term of your sub carefully. Be especially cautious of the lifetime subscription. It is a subscription for the life of your tuner, not you. You can't cancel it or transfer it to another tuner.  The warranty for the Kenwood H2A tuner is one year, and after that you're on your own.  The hardware is too new for anyone, even the manufacturers, to know how long or how well the product will hold up.

  You have 30 days to change your mind about your subscription. Don't let anyone at Customer Service tell you otherwise. Read the terms and conditions extremely carefully. It's not something you should do on an impulse and hope everything works out. Failing to understand what you got into will gain you no sympathy from Sirius Radio. You have no leverage as a customer. None whatsoever. Remember that. Repeat it out loud before you activate your radio.

The worst aspect of the subscription deal are the fees. There's a steep cancellation fee to terminate your service before your sub runs out, and a steep fee to switch your sub to a different tuner. The transfer fee and cancellation fee don't apply to the lifetime subscription. Both of these fees are $75, and you should consider the second (transfer) fee carefully before you make the plunge. Even if you don't have a lifetime subscription, if your tuner breaks out of warranty, or a fancy new tuner comes on the market, you would then be stuck with a subscription that's only good for that individual old tuner, unless you come up with another $75 to transfer your sub to a new tuner. What's really obscene about this is that there's almost no cost incurred to Sirius to transfer the sub. It could be done online without the need for customer support staff. No account information changes, and in fact there's no fee to change your address or credit card account, so this huge fee to change the ID number is galling. I've been told by Sirius Customer Service that they may waive the transfer fee at their discretion.

The subscription is only good for one tuner. If you have a Sirius-enabled car stereo and you want to use a second tuner in your home, you have to get a second subscription. The second sub is half-price. If you do decide to subscribe, the best idea is to do the "activation" online at the Sirius.com website. It's slightly cheaper and faster. My tuner worked less than two minutes after the deal was sealed on the secure site. A credit card is the only acceptable form of payment.

Pay the money and talk to the hand

As far as the Customer Service department, programmers, or stream jockeys are concerned, it's pretty much "talk to the hand" when dealing with anyone. The stream jockeys seldom deign to reply. It would be beneath them, after all. Requests are put on a "list", perhaps to be played once, weeks in the future, if at all. Anything coming from subscribers except a payment is almost universally ignored. Sirius Radio knows what's best, and apparently the customer is merely a necessary inconvenience. This reminds me a great deal of the way commercial FM radio works, only you don't pay for FM.

  There actually is a site for discussion of Sirius (www.siriusbackstage.com), which is not run by Sirius Radio but by Sirius partisans, though Sirius advertises there. I think it's very telling that the moderators of the discussion boards there have posted that they want to discourage negative comments, as this makes reading the boards "a downer" which may discourage new subscriptions. Instead, they tell us, we should sit down and write a snail-mail letter to Sirius, who will then (we should trust) give our views the consideration we deserve. Email feedback is viewed as too 'impulsive' to be useful. Also, we should not complain about the same issues more than once, as that makes our opinion "disregarded". The issue of negative feedback is continually framed as being Sirius vs. FM, rather than Sirius vs. XM, a service with three times the subscribers. People who have been influenced by partisans' glowing and unadulterated praise of Sirius and subsequently become subscribers sometimes return there and state that things are not as rosy as the partisans made out. These people are promptly labelled as "whiners" and given short shrift. Sometimes they are advised to purchase stock in Sirius to increase their profile and influence with Sirius Radio, thus getting their concerns addressed more effectively. Again, the term "shill" comes to mind.

XM Radio requires a prompt, personal response to any feedback email sent and they have request call-ins and SMS request capability. Sirius Radio, however, ignores you until you convince them (hopefully) that you are someone whose opinion matters. If you are unhappy with the programming, want to hear more or less of a particular artist or genre, are pleased with something new and want it to continue, or have a question about how decisions are arrived at, you had best keep it to yourself. The arrogance of their attitude is summarised as "We know what we're doing. We're professionals. You don't know anything about the music business. Just pay the money and smile, okay?" Again, this approach does not present a great contrast to commercial FM, except that you can be ignored in a much larger field of genres.

Is it worth it?

  Bear in mind that you are the party taking the risks in the relationship with the satellite radio service provider. If you buy a Sirius Radio tuner, you can't use it for a subscription to XM Radio, and vice versa. If you find the service or programming unsatisfactory, your only recourse is to cancel your subscription, leaving you with the equivalent of a fancy, expensive, electronic paperweight. You could sell your equipment on E-bay or through a classified ad, but anyone who bought it wouldn't have warranty coverage because the warranty is only valid for a product purchased from an authorised distributor. In effect, you're placing a bet on the satellite provider, and it's human nature to avoid admitting it when we have placed a bad bet. You may find yourself putting on a brave face and making the best of a bad deal. The satellite service provider holds all the cards. Hypothetically, they could dramatically alter their service (move to an all-Albanian folk music format, make your receiver obsolete, reduce the sound quality or satellite coverage, include advertising, etc.) or go out of business and you would be left holding the proverbial bag.

  Ask yourself how much time you spend listening to the radio now. You will probably spend about as much time listening to Sirius or XM, because there is a finite amount of time available in a person's schedule where it's feasible to listen to radio. Do you think you would be willing to reduce the time you spend watching television in order to devote yourself to your new satellite radio? Will there be other people with access to the tuner who would get something out of it, perhaps more than you? Is there some special programming on Sirius you would be willing to spend $13 a month on? These are good questions to ask yourself before considering a subscription.

  Sirius Radio has availed itself of "buzz marketing", relying on the ordinary consumer to carry the "gospel" of Sirius to the sceptical masses. I find it amusing to encounter these people with this unfounded loyalty to a bottom-line corporation that doesn't care in the least what they (or anyone else) thinks or if their customers are satisfied. For those in the real business world, ask yourself where your business would be if you ignored your customers and smugly reassured yourself that they'll pay whatever you ask for whatever you feel is good enough.

  The Sirius subscribers are put in an unenviable position of gambling a large chunk of change on a service, then being implicitly told that they had better act as unpaid promotional agents for Sirius Radio if they want it to be around in the future. At the same time, the implied message from Sirius Radio is that they don't want to hear any "backtalk", only cheerleading. It's very strange, as if Sirius employed the listener rather than the other way around. To top it off, the Sirius subscriber pays $3/month more (than XM Radio) for a service that seems to consider them little more than a chump, an annoyance with a credit card. The fact that Sirius Radio doesn't want potential new subscribers to hear about the dissatisfaction of current subscribers should give anyone but the most diehard Sirius partisan pause. Everything I see tends to point to a fatal reliance by Sirius Radio on the principle that people will continue to  throw good money after bad once they've bought a receiver. Does this sound like a business model you'd like to get in on the ground floor of?

  Both Sirius and XM have agreed to move to interoperable formats in the future, meaning that a Sirius receiver will work with XM and vice versa. What this will mean for those now holding receivers is a big question mark. We aren't supposed to talk about this, however, as it may impact the current sales of receivers. It's certain that the manufacturers of receivers for both services will be well looked after in any deal.

  There are partisans aplenty for both Sirius and XM. You will no doubt run across someone on the Net who "loves Sirius!!!" and who just bought their fifth tuner. In general, if Sirius Radio created a channel with nothing but static, these partisans would rave about the quality of the static. They are little more than shills. Whatever Sirius Radio does is wonderful to these people, and they tolerate no criticism. Their tastes in music may not stray too far from what one finds on commercial FM, yet they profess a disdain for FM. As a rule, they have an odd philosophy that the most popular music is therefore the best, but when faced with the fact that XM is three times more popular than Sirius, suddenly the less-popular underdog is the obvious choice. Any criticism of Sirius Radio is seen by these people as akin to treason. Combine this with the fact that most reviews are made by people selling radios, or by those merely impressed with a satellite in space transmitting a radio signal to the ground, and it becomes difficult to find objective information on digital satellite radio.

  You might be very happy with Sirius. You might not. You might be unhappy and refuse to admit you were taken for a ride. XM Radio has it's downsides, too, but the focus of this site is on Sirius Radio. Good Luck!

  Again, for the Sirius Radio attorneys' benefit, I am not a representative of Sirius Radio. This page is not maintained by, supported by, or affiliated with Sirius Radio in any way. Everything on this page is my own opinion, and there may be information presented as fact although the situation has changed since the page was updated. No one pays me or compensates me in any way to publish this page.  Anyone labouring under the delusion that Sirius Radio would put up a page like this should seek the attentions of a mental health professional.

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Todd Dugdale,

   Astronomical consultant for the Lunaria Lunar Almanac

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