Satellite radio advertises big names

Subscribers pay $12.95 monthly for the service.
By DANIEL RUBIN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
NEW YORK -- "You're in The Mansion with Johansen," crows the rocker David Johansen, cuing up six hours of Friday-night serendipity -- Mary Wells into Big Bill Broonzy into Bread -- in a corner studio at Sirius Satellite Radio. "We're getting our hip ticket punched."
He has no idea who's listening. No one reads him numbers or focus reports. It's like the old days of free-form radio -- only he's working for the latest thing, a medium that is growing faster than cell phones or cable television did in their infancy.
Over the last two years, Sirius and its rival, XM Radio, have spent $1.5 billion to secure talent and broadcast rights to sports in hopes of convincing listeners tired of AM and FM that the answer is orbiting overhead.
We're witnessing a satellite slugfest, with each service constantly trumping the other.
Last week, it was Sirius announcing the creation of a 24-hour Martha Stewart lifestyle channel. A week earlier, XM said it was partnering with America Online on an Internet radio service to capitalize on the broadband boom.
XM lassoed Al Franken and his liberal Air America from Sirius. Sirius diverted NASCAR from XM, starting in 2007.
Users
So far, the services have signed up more than five million people. For Sirius, in particular, the keys to persuading people to pay $12.95 a month for something they get for free -- radio -- are sports, including professional football, basketball and hockey, and brand-name personalities, including Johansen.
It's actually a Wednesday night when the New York Doll, a k a Buster Poindexter, arrives by subway to record the vocal bits between musical sets for his weekly "Mansion of Fun" show. Johansen's notion of DJing is to deliver cosmic musings while staging contests for bottles of perfume "the size of a Yugo" or Heroes of the Torah drinking glasses. So far, no winners.
"I'm not trying to scare people or show how hip I am," Johansen said during a cigarette break. "I'm just playing stuff I dig."
You can do that on satellite radio, with 120 channels or more to fill -- including commercial-free music, from Top 40 and classic rock to ultra-niche formats of blues and bluegrass, opera and Opry.
Lately, the stars have come out to play.
On Friday nights at Sirius, former B-52's front man Fred Schneider is on the new-wave channel, sharing the stacks of '80s wax he hauls in each week.
Other times, basketball Hall of Famer and Grateful Deadhead Bill Walton plays jam bands. Little Steven Van Zandt, the E Street Band guitarist and "Sopranos" wiseguy, produces alt-country and garage-band channels. Faction, a youthful mix of hard rock and rap, features shows by skateboarder Bam Margera, cyclist Lance Armstrong and surfer Kelly Slater.
That's just on Sirius, which signed shock jock Howard Stern to a five-year deal beginning Jan. 1.
Competition
Meanwhile XM, the larger, more established competitor based in Washington, has Tom Petty mining the Kinks, Van Morrison and ELO on his Sunday-night "Buried Treasure" show. Rappers Snoop Dogg, Trick Daddy and Prodigy do soul, R & amp;B and hip-hop shows. Wrestler Chris Jericho hammers home his hard-rock faves.
XM has something else going for it: nearly three times as many subscribers. It inked Major League Baseball to an 11-year deal and has an exclusive arrangement with General Motors, the country's largest automaker, to factory-install its receivers. XM's one-year head start has given it a technological edge; only it offers a personal player, MyFi, a wallet-size receiver that also records five hours of shows.
With Stern coming and radio vet Mel Karmazin newly at the helm, Sirius execs say they're the ones with velocity. As of Jan. 24, the service had 1.24 million subscribers.
XM, meanwhile, has announced its biggest first-quarter gain: 540,000 new customers, to total nearly 3.8 million. It expects to break even by the end of next year. Sirius is aiming for 2007.
Analysts say there's plenty of action for both to thrive.
While neither service has made a penny, satellite radio remains a market force: Stock prices have been rising faster than those of the two largest radio companies, Clear Channel Communications Inc. and Viacom, which have 170 million listeners between them.
"It's too early to call a winner," said Ted Schadler, the analyst who wrote Forrester Research's March report on satellite radio, and estimated its audience would grow to 20 million in five years.
At the moment, he said, Sirius is focusing on acquiring brand-name talent and programming, while XM has the lead in deals with carmakers and development of appealing receivers.
Cost of satellite
Both Sirius and XM charge subscribers $12.95 per month. For an extra $3 a month, XM subscribers can get the Playboy Channel.
XM and Sirius offer $99 car receivers that can play through a car stereo. For $30 more, an XM kit allows it to play through a home stereo. Sirius' at-home kit costs $40.
For more information, go to www.xm.com and www.sirius.com.