I have talked about this kind of service now for some time and to be honest things have not changed much since the first time several years ago.
First let talk about comparisons:
Who would Pandora be closest to???????? Hummm, thats right terrestrial radio. Lets get some of the differences out of the way first. Pandora has a larger MUSIC selection, when you get to listen to it. Thats because terrestrial is alot easyer to get then Pandora. Terrestrial has talk and sports, Pandora has none of that. Now we get to how are they the same. Well that is simple they are both mostly ad based services. That means you pay for it with your time. They both have many that listen to them (probably because they are both FREE).
Now that a case has been built that pandora is much more like terrestrial radio then satellite radio. What was it again that has happen to terrestrial lately???? Ho thats right, they are having trouble staying in business. Really that should have been put into the comparison portion of this Pandora thread. Why well because lets face it Pandora is STILL far from out of the woods and is still having trouble making its business model work with the high price of royalty fees (and those fee will only go up, NOT DOWN).
What I find most amazing is that the same people that said SIRI/XMSR/SIRIXM could not make it when competing against free terrestrial, are now saying a service which says its free (really only free if you dont mind paying for the other service you NEED TO HAVE to get it) is also going to put SIRIXM out of business. So I have to ask where are the articles from these same people that say, "look out Viacom, Pandora is going to put you out of business"???? Soooo let me get this logic correct; A service like Pandora that is as different from SIRIXM as SIRIXM is different to terrestrial, and that same service (Pandora) is alike in many more ways to terrestrial is going to put SIRIXM out of bussiness. So let me clarify this, they are going to skip right over terrestrial (its closest compeditor) and put SIRIXM out of business FIRST. Yea that makes alot of sense......NOT.
Here are the basic facts:
First of all Pandora actually cost MORE then SIRIXM. Yes thats right you heard me correct because how do you get Pandora????????? Ho thats right you need to have a cell service + (basically unlimited service WHICH WILL COST MORE), OR you have to have an internet service. Both services on there own will cost more then what you would pay for SIRIXM. I should not even have to mention that SIRIXM only cost 6.95/month for just its music channels (lets compare apples to apples here).
There will always be the problem of connectivity with Pandora for the foreseeable future. SIRIXM does not have that problem.
Internet royalty fees cost way more then SIRIXM pays for its satellite radio royalty fees. Trust me there is a reason you dont get a bunch of music channels on the internet. If I had to guess (not a fact, just my opinion here because it is very sensible) SIRIXM would like to stay as far from the internet as it possibly can. They have seen how the higher royalty fees for internet have made it hard to pay and still stay in business.
Pandora is like terrestrial EXCEPT the royalty fees are much higher for Pandora and SIRIXM has had no trouble competing with terrestrial so far.