How about a brilliant idea to offer a subscription service like satellite TV, but for your car stereo. Or home stereo. And offer enough channels to cover all music styles. And have lots of stations that play nothing but music, with no annoying disc jockeys. And have dedicated sports channels - even two channels to cover NASCAR races and associated cultural programming. And, for those who do actually like talk radio, offer many of those stations, including some ethnicity-specific stations. And for your commuting needs, throw in some stations dedicated to major metropolitan areas in the U.S., ones that will offer up to the minute traffic reports.

An XM Satellite radio...satellite

And then call this brilliant idea XM cuz it sounds cool. Or whatever.

XM is great. It is the perfect solution to radio, at least in my opinion. I would happily pay to not be stuck listening to commercials and political propaganda and opinions on lots of events that I really don't care about. And there are a lot of people who agree, as XM has 2.5 million subscribers through the third quarter of this year.

XM offers just about every type of music that could suit your mood, from several different rock genres to bluegrass to multiple rap and hip-hop stations to pop to classical and opera. XM also has a top-quality live-performances studio, where they have recorded superstars like Billy Joel, Melissa Etheridge, and Wynton Marsalis. It is perfect for the eclectic music enthusiast.

XM's liver performance studio, which has featured artists such as Billy Joel and Melissa Etheridge

XM is also a very good alternative to a CD player, as you are never fumbling through your glove box or center console for an album, and you keep your eyes on the road. Once your index finger finds that sleek button, you can channel surf until just the right wavelength hits your ears. Multi-disc CD changers are adequate for most, but you just can't get the variety you will with XM.

Above and beyond content, the quality of the delivery is wonderful. The sound quality is great, and the reception is noticeably better than AM/FM radio. On 1500 miles of driving, including the traversing of several (mostly short) tunnels, I only completely lost reception just once, as I was parked under a freeway overpass waiting for the light to change. This wonderful sound quality and immaculate reception is the result of state of the art audio encoding technology CT-aac Plus, a product that is the culmination of efforts by audio experts AT&T, Dolby, Fraunhofer and Sony. XM is simply the best quality radio you can get.

One of XM's satellite uplinks

And XM is not just for the car. Devices are made that allow you to play XM on your home stereo. Stand-alone XM stereos are offered, and XM radio is now available online. Just as this article is being posted - on October 26^th - hand-held portable XM radios have been released - take that, iPod. No matter where you are, XM is there.

So XM is a very good thing, there's just the question of cost. Just about ten to fifteen bucks a month gets you the subscription. Premium channels like Playboy cost extra. And if you throw down twenty grand for a GM vehicle, you'll even get the first 3 months?basic subscription fee waived.

Delphi's extremely popular XM receiver, the SKYFi

That's right; GM has been installing XM-capable radios in its cars since November of 2001, when it started offering XM on Cadillac DeVilles and Sevilles. GM upped the ante to 44 vehicles for its 2004 model year lineup. Thus, you do not have to cough up an extra 100 bucks to buy the equipment necessary to make your radio XM-compatible.

This feature of new GM cars is actually a small piece of the pie. GM has expressed great confidence in both the immediate value and the potential of XM satellite radio. They have invested $150 million in said company, and have given XM an additional $250 million line of credit.

Honda has also been supportive of XM, investing 50 million dollars into the satellite radio provider, installing XM radio into some of its vehicles and also paying the first 3 months?subscription fees.

The question for the immediate future is how many new GM and Honda car buyers will start footing the few extra bucks per month to continue the subscription. The subscriptions to XM have been increasing by the hundreds of thousands per quarter over the past two years, so perhaps the answer is yes.

The big question for all of XM's time is: can they stay afloat? That all depends on generated cash flow, and their ability to fend off competitors like Sirius (who has 100 million dollars in backing from Daimler Chrysler). With 2.5 million subscribers and growing, at about 10 dollars per month, there's 25 million dollars per month or 300 million dollars gross income per year, before operating expenses. That has to be balanced with a hefty 1.5 billion dollar debt acquired since 1992, and big contracts like the 650 million dollar broadcast and marketing agreement just signed on October 20^th with Major League Baseball.

Will XM be a survivor? Amazon.com was famous for losing hundreds of millions of dollars per year as they "invested in the future." They're still thriving.

XM has a great product to offer: radio that's much better than radio as we have grown to know it. Better sound quality, better programming quality, and better reception, all for a price quite insignificant in comparison to any other option you might want for your car. You could risk investing in a dozen CD's in a year, or listen to all your favorite artists and find a hundred new ones with XM. XM is tough to beat. XM will survive.