The window is closing on satellite radio. Its obit, and it won’t go completely out of business, just like there’s still a market for vinyl records, will read "Killed By The iPod".

How did they screw up so bad?

Sirius delaying its introduction until it got the kinks out of its proprietary chips. XM using off the shelf parts but being unable to communicate to people why they NEEDED IT!

In case you missed it, more than 70% of 2007 model U.S. cars will feature seamless iPod integration

Apple teams with Ford, GM & Mazda to deliver seamless iPod Integration

You won’t just be able to plug the damn thing in, you’ll be able to run it via your radio. I ask you, how many people are going to buy aftermarket satellite radios NOW?

XM was about music discovery. You can’t get that on an iPod. You can only listen to what you ALREADY KNOW! But what did XM tell the consumer? That David Bowie was falling from the sky?

Sirius was on its way to bankruptcy before it signed Howard Stern. Now alive, the stunning thing is HOW FEW PEOPLE FOLLOWED HOWARD TO SIRIUS! In one fell swoop, Howard marginalized himself, took himself off the national stage, and no matter how much Mel Karmazin polishes the apple, it turns out MOST PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO PAY FOR RADIO!

Satellite radio is like Rhapsody. Or Napster. You’ve got to pay EVERY MONTH! And when the year is over, after you’ve invested over $150, you’ve got NOTHING! Whereas an investment in an iPod, available for even the same price, will pay dividends FOREVER (well, at least for a few years, until it either breaks or is superseded by a hotter model you MUST have) and will be filled FOR FREE! (Don’t think people are filling their iPods at the iTunes Music Store, they just rip THEIR CDs, and THEIR FRIENDS’ CDs. Sure, someone had to buy those discs once, but you would have anyway, so the music FEELS FREE! Never mind the music that truly IS free, which you stole P2P.)

Sure, XM and Sirius have relationships with auto manufacturers, but nowhere near as good as Apple’s.

And satellite radio doesn’t work as well. I have to turn off Sirius all the time because it keeps dropping out. As for XM, the reception is better, but now XM is perceived as the stepchild, the Creative Zen of satellite radio, an outlet for iconoclasts ONLY!

Aftermarket sales, i.e. retail sales, i.e. install in your car yourself sales, represent 50% of satellite purchases. Believe me, you don’t want one of these units. With their hanging wires and antenna issues. Whereas if you buy an iPod, you just PLUG IT IN!

It’s desperation time for satellite radio. They’ve got to communicate why people need it, IMMEDIATELY!

Sirius wants us to believe we need celebrities. We’ve got ENOUGH celebrities. Does anybody really need to pay $12.95 a month to listen to a hip-hop station named for Eminem that they know he has almost nothing to do with? For Sirius, it’s Howard Stern and Howard Stern only. Shit, who wants to listen to all those NFL games on the radio ANYWAY? Dedicated fans just buy the DirecTV package.

As for XM… At least they’ve got baseball. As for Bob Dylan… He doesn’t sell a million albums per release and if he’s selling out stadiums, they’re in his mind.

Satellite radio is a nineties idea that is losing traction in a twenty first century world. It works even worse than Windows XP, and is marketed as well as Gateway. I love it because it exposes me to a wealth of music, certainly on XM, it’s a music lover’s PARADISE! But the public has given up on music radio. They believe you discover new acts and tunes on the Web. And that car radio is for talk.

How did so many fuck up so badly?