Gadget Bloggers

If rock music fans had to choose between XM and Sirius, survey says:  Advantage Sirius.  But the bad news is how many of them say they won’t go to satellite radio at all.  Ever.

The very-highly-regarded radio consultant Fred Jacobs surveyed rock, classic rock and alternative format listeners.  Caveat - it was an Internet survey so it may not be a representative sample.  But the sample size - about 25,000 - is large for this kind of survey.

And the results were eye-opening:  XM and Sirius are about even among these listeners, each with 6% of the overall audience.  (XM still has a huge majority of the overall subscriber base in satellite radio.)  As for the Howard Stern factor, Jacobs says his presence on Sirius is “a defining difference”.  32% of those surveyed who subscribe to Sirius say Stern was a key factor in their decision.  However, Jacobs says, the majority of his former listeners are sticking with terrestrial radio.  Which would be bad news for Sirius and even worse news for its stockholders.

And the worst news for satellite radio in the survey - 7 out of 10 surveyed said they wouldn’t pay for radio when they now get it for free.  9 out of 10 indicate little or no likelihood of signing up for either XM or Sirius.

There are a lot of question marks - such as will more subscribers sign up when their new cars have satellite radios already built in.  So far, though, Jacobs’ survey shows Internet streaming and iPods are still far more popular with the overwhelmingly male-skewing rock radio listeners.  HD Radio isn’t mentioned, and since this digital over-the-air technology is still only minimally available (like HDTV was ten years ago) it’s too soon to tell what, if anything, it’ll amount to. 

More at www.jacobsmedia.com

 

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