Yes, I was one of those crazy people who got up at “O-Dark-Thirty” to brave the cold temperature and wait in line at Best Buy with what amounted to about 500 others at this particular store. I was actually quite surprised to see the crowd this big. None of the retailers seemed to have that “knock-your-socks-off” item this year, but still, the crowds were bigger.

So what had me at Best Buy so early? Well, I was part of split duty this morning. I manned the Best Buy Line while my wife braved an even longer line at Toys R Us. My mission was GPS units and digital picture frames. Once I finally reached the store, I found myself waiting in yet another line for the GPS units. In front of me were about 100 others, and there were at least another 100 behind me. This year, the portable GPS unit seemed to be the hot commodity.

Having witnessed Black Friday personally over the past several years, i can say that the movement of satellite radio from store shelves was not a brisk as in years past. People were buying satellite radio, but it was not an overwhelming wave of people clearing a display as fast as the salesperson could stock it. Had Sirius or XM partnered with TomTom on their device, there would have been some serious benefits for the satellite radio providers!

This year I would place Black Friday satellite radio sales results as mediocre. Not too fast, not too slow…..but also not impressive. Retail for satellite radio saw its peak just prior to Howard Sterns arrival to Sirius.

Position – Long Sirius, XM