After Sleeping On It, I Forgive AAR/XM/SIRIUS (except for Colmes)

[Edgewater_Joe]

I was really upset last night when I heard about XM stealing Air America from Sirius, but after a night's sleep, it seems to me I really don't have that much to be upset about.

From a bid-ness perspective, the XM/SIRIUS battle is nothing more or less than an old-fashioned radio war, with each company trying to position itself to get subscribers either through technology or content. And until now, Sirius has by and large had the leg up on the content battle. Stern, the NFL, the NBA -- and a month ago, they announced they grabbed NASCAR out from under XM's nose. So XM, after first nailing down MLB, seemed to realize they needed to do something to counter the NASCAR move.

That XM decided that the counter to NASCAR was Air America, besides being supremely loaded with irony, really does speak very well of AAR's growth and potential. It does make me as a loyal Sirius subscriber very upset, but Sirius has been very responsive before. They had a left-wing stream long before AAR (carrying Malloy and Thom Hartmann), and I have to think they'll stay committed to two left-wing streams to counter the two right-wing streams that are currently playing. My dream is that the AAR contract with XM isn't all that "exclusive" and they wind up putting all of Randi and Malloy on Sirius, but there is enough talent now being developed on the left that I think Sirius should be able to get two streams of programming. Bernie Ward, Peter Werbe, Stephanie Miller - who knows?

I know I'm not getting rid of Sirius. Hartmann's great, I switch over to the Young Turks occassionally when Randi gets a little overberaring, and they have two great progressive talk show hosts on their OutQ gay/lesbian stream in Michaelangelo Signorile and John McMullen.

What I'm currently debating is whether to go with a portable XM system -- which I was tempted to do for the baseball anyway -- or get an AirExpress wireless system to broadcast my Mac stuff onto other radios (theres' a product called AirFoil that is supposed to allow non-iTunes webcasts to stream). Ideally I'd just get a portable XM system, at least until/unless Chicago gets an AAR affiliate at long last.

But GAWD, I'd hate to give them a dime to have to listen to Alan Colmes on anything ...

[ET Awful]

1. Once again . . .

NOBODY has said at any point or anywhere that AAR was no longer going to be carried on Sirius.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. What does "exclusive" mean in your neck of the woods?

I do hope it's not "exclusive", but that's the word going around right now....

[ET Awful]

3. Nobody said exclusive either.

You might want to check into the difference between "exclusive" and "official."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3467014#3467130

[onehandle]

4. They do here....

"When the deal begins in May, Air America Radio will no longer air on Sirius Satellite Radio, which has 1.2 million subscribers to XM's nearly 3.8 million."

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000875402

[ET Awful]

5. They also (and I now stand corrected) say the same thing if you call

and inquire directly from the Air America corporate offices. 1-646-274-4900