Beam Me Down

Any tips on which satellite radio service to choose? I'm thinking we'd get 10 bucks' worth of enjoyment out of a subscription to some non-terrestrial audio action, and while at first it seemed like an open-and-shut case for Sirius (which has NPR and the NFL), now I'm not so sure.

First off, I don't go in for Howard Stern. He makes me feel prudish when he disgusts me and juvenile when he amuses me. So I'd actually consider that a strike against Sirius - I don't want to be the dude helping subsidize Howard's $96,000-an-hour salary.

And in addition to a Stern-free satellite feed, XM is reputed to have a movie soundtracks channel, featuring songs from films as well as interviews with composers. That sounds nice.

And I hear they round out their '50s, '60s and other nostalgia broadcasts with vintage commercials and clips from old TV shows and stuff, even having the deejays talk in era-appropriate chatter, while Sirius plays it more, uh, serious.

Overall, though, they say Sirius deejays tell you more about the music they're playing and stories behind it and so forth, and I like that a lot.

Plus I just found out that Sirius's three satellites were launched in 2000 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and I like almost every word in that sentence.

As far as Dance/Electronica music goes, both are covered on the chillaciousness front. But XM seems to cater more to the "raver" crowd, while Sirius features the "nonstop breakbeats." I'm for nonstop breakbeats.

Then again, even though kids programming isn't really of interest to me at this point in my life, I am pretty intrigued by the nightly lullaby hour available on XM Kids.

But both have their drawbacks. Following an initial promise to offer a vast galaxy of weird audio delights, XM and Sirius have scaled back their programming and made it more mainstream. Both used to have a World Music channel, for instance, and XM dropped their cool cocktail lounge sounds and exotica, while Sirius put the kibosh on swing jazz and tropical and calypso music. No good.

And as far as my wife goes, Sirius has Martha Stewart, but XM has Oprah.

And as far as my dweeby techno-interests go, I still don't know much about the equipment available for each network.

So I don't know. I lean toward Sirius, for the NPR, the nonstop breakbeats and the Baikonur Cosmodrome. There is also the stupid, nonsensical and undeniable reason that I always lean toward the unpopular candidate --Sirius has a few million less subscribers.

But I remain agnostic.

What do you say?