When iconic morning host Howard Stern moved from regular radio to satellite earlier this year, it was supposed to be a coming of age. Instead, the industry's two rivals, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., are still reporting heavy losses, despite a few years ago telling investors they would need four million customers each to break even. XM crossed that mark more than a year ago; Sirius hit it earlier this year. Last year, XM lost $667 million, and Sirius lost $863 million. And Sirius is facing a potential exodus of subscribers as a clutch of promotional one-year trials soon comes to an end.

You mean .mp3?
- tom moody 8-16-2006 2:58 am

or should it be "digital Walkman"?
- mark 8-16-2006 3:30 am

That's good, but the mp3 revolution embraces portable players, file sharing, and listening on home or office pcs. All of that is probably taking away from satellite. I'm being a stickler because napster and its progeny deserve as much credit as Apple.
- tom moody 8-16-2006 4:41 am

I think mp3 is a reasonable moniker for the revolution in music distribution, although it's just the most popular of several different audio codecs. XM uses one of the best: aacPlus. Sirius uses something I haven't heard of before: ePAC. But these codecs are all just different ways of making audio files easier to store and transmit. I think the differentiation you're keying on is open v. closed.

The iPod and iTunes do have their problems, but they have better adapted to the ecosystem. iTunes is semi-open, and gets some leverage from the domain of "unchained" mp3s, whereas Sirius and XM are entirely closed. While I'm tempted to get an iPod, I really have no interest in digital radio -- and it looks like I'm not the only one.
- mark 8-16-2006 5:06 am

I'll settle for completely open until the Man comes with his chains to lock me up! I still think there's a huge underground traffic in mp3s that has nothing to do with Apple (if my stats at tommoody.us are any indication.)
- tom moody 8-16-2006 5:14 am

What is this completely open portable media player you keep talking about? I'd love to know what it is because I've been dying to get one that will talk with my old IBM PCjr, as well as with my Solaris 9 workstation, but I didn't think such a thing existed. Are you saying there is a portable player that is not tied in some way to specific software? That sounds like an amazing breakthrough!
- jim 8-16-2006 5:44 pm

I don't think I ever said there was such a thing as an "open source portable."

As I said, I don't use a digital Walkman. Paul Slocum recommended Rockbox playing on a iRiver. You could probably use your PC to load it, and use Winamp to edit id3 info, etc.

The point of my post was continued resistance to the term "podcast" for mp3s.
- tom moody 8-16-2006 6:25 pm

Okay. It just sounded to me like you think the iPod has some sort of restrictions on it that other players do not have. The iTunes music store does indeed have DRM on the tracks it sells, but that is a separate product from the iPod. I would never buy anything from the iTunes music store for this reason, and I think it deserves some criticism (although, to be fair, Apple publicly stated that they didn't want the DRM and were forced into it - like every other digital music store that deals with the majors - by the labels.) But the iPod is separate from the music store and does nothing to hinder the user. I load all my pirated .mp3s onto my iPod with zero trouble.

But I guess you aren't criticizing the iPod for not being open, but just because people use the name in an overly general way. Fair enough. I don't see how this is Apple's fault, but maybe you aren't criticizing Apple and probably I'm being too sensitive. Sorry if I am.
- jim 8-16-2006 6:41 pm

in a name.

edit to include more curry info :

Adam Curry is involved in the development and promotion of podcasting. He produces and presents a podcast named Daily Source Code where his wife Patricia and his daughter Christina make occasional appearances. He was a key figure at BloggerCon 2004, held at Stanford Law School. As of June 2005, Curry hosts a show on Sirius Satellite Radio, entitled "Adam Curry's PodShow", running from 6 to 10 p.m. EST on weekdays. Also in June of 2005 he started the iTunes podcast PodFinder [4], a guide to podcasts for new listeners. Curry founded PodShow, Inc., along with business partner, Ron Bloom, in January 2005. Venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital have invested nearly $9 million into PodShow.[5] PodShow is a podcast promotions and advertising company that encompasses the Podshow Podcast Network, the Podcast Delivery Network (launched on July 4, 2006), and the Podsafe Music Network (still in beta). Some of Podshow's top podcasts are Curry's own Daily Source Code, The Dawn and Drew Show, GeekBrief.TV, and the MommyCast, who secured a $200,000 sponsorship from paper product manufacturer, Dixie cup Dixie, through PodShow.[6] [edit] Controversy Some controversy was caused by four edits Curry made to Wikipedia's podcasting article during 2005, which appeared to boost his role in the creation of podcasting by removing mention of early work by others [7]. Curry later apologized, saying he had not understood how to use Wikipedia editing functions and had been unaware of some of the prior work done by Kevin Marks. [8] [9] Dave Winer, another controversial internet celebrity, has accused him of exaggerating his contributions to podcasting and claiming to invent things he had not.[10] In late February 2006, Adam sued the Dutch tabloid Weekend for reprinting photos from his Flickr page and publishing details about his daughter. [11] The photos were released under a version of the Creative Commons license, which forbids commercial use and requires acknowledgement, but the tabloid printed a few of them without contacting Curry. The verdict of the lawsuit did not reward Curry, but required the tabloid to pay a fine for each photo used if they published the photos again.

I always thought Adam Curry coined the term. But he's not mentioned in the wikipedia article.

But back on topic, I think the notion that portable mp3 players have beaten satellite radio is correct. Or, better, the combination of easy to obtain pirated music on the net and portable music players have beaten satellite radio. Or at least dealt them a mortal wound.
- jim 8-16-2006 7:00 pm

why is "walkman" better than "ipod?" isnt that just prefering sonys branding to apples?
- dave 8-16-2006 9:22 pm

I was kidding about "Walkman." I call my portable music player my ________ because I don't have one.
- tom moody 8-16-2006 10:22 pm