Mark Evans looks at satellite radio in the wake of results coming out this week from Canadian Satellite Radio (TSX: XSR), the people who bring XM to Canada. Mark asks whether subscriber numbers of 1 million are attainable.
We’re looking at this right now in our household. We are halfway through our 90 day trial subscription provided as part of the purchase of a new car and we need to decide whether to sign up, as Mark Evans says, to 50 cents a day in programming costs.
I have to admit, I like XM channel 46 – Toptracks. On a recent 4 hour drive to Detroit, I found it played my music the whole way down. My wife had her headphones on watching season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy, so she was able to put up with (or maybe just ignore) me singing along to my kind of music – even I sound good singing back-up to Neil Young and Bob Dylan.
But, are we prepared to plunk down $14.99 per month for (almost) commercial free music?
Mark says:
While I can see how satellite-radio can appeal to certain types of customers (taxi and truck drivers, serious commuters, cottage owners), I’m still not sold on its mainstream appeal.
I’ll tell you about cottage country music. As soon as I get past Gasoline Alley north of Barrie, the car radio seems to tune itself to The Moose (99.5). All cottage music, all the time.
We’ll need to decide before the end of the year.
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