XM versus Sirius?

This has probably been asked before. My neighbor is a true believer in XM satellite radio. (Despite living in a university town with a very hip music scene, radio here sucks bigtime). I'm very impressed with XM's selection, but I also know Clear Channel (the Borg) is an investor. Sirius, on the other hand, I know nothing about.

Any informed opinions?

Can't be all bad! It's a tad more expensive per month, too. But, I believe it is 100% commercial free.

and I like it a lot. I like Sirius better because I think it has a better selection of news and talk stations. It has two NPR stations, plus Public Radio International and a station devoted to liberal talk, and it also has good liberal talk with Michelangelo Signorile on the OutQ station.

Having only listened to Sirius, I don't know if there's much difference between the music selection on the two systems. Both have 100% commercial free music. If you like sports, Sirius has live NBA and NHL games and will carry all NFL games starting next fall, plus they'll be adding a station devoted to NFL coverage.

I think you just have to look at the programming available for both and determine which you would be most interested in listening to. I think both are a vast improvement over what we have available locally.

also, any NCAA football coverage?

Do you have a "mobile" radio, one that you can use in the car and home?

I think XM is $10 per month, so Sirius costs an extra $3 per month.

The extent of NCAA coverage is whatever is on ESPN radio. They don't have any college football live play-by-play, though ESPN radio has pretty extensive coverage on Saturdays during the football season. Both Sirius and XM have ESPN radio.

Yes, we have a plug-and-play system that we can use in both the car and the home.
You can go to www.sirius.com and www.xmradio.com to see the products available for both (and the programming). We've got the Audiovox PNP2, and I think it's great.

I've been interested for some time, but no interested enough to check it out further

I think I will spring for the extra $3 just to keep my money away from the Clear Channel weasels

You might find this website useful http://www.siriusbackstage.com/ - a fan site. They have forums which might be helpful to you.

I'm leaning towards Sirius myself based on the talk radio and sports availability and also I like the idea of their being some competition in the satellite radio industry. I hear a lot of people going with XM just because they have the most subscribers. But from what I understand Sirius seems to be in good shape.

but XM has a better variety of channels beyond that, and better sounding music with less noticable compression as Sirius. (As claimed on TechTv's ScreenSavers)

Sirius has much better talk radio, whereas XM has a better music selection IMO. They've also cut commercials completely out of most of the channels to keep up with Sirius.

Sirius does have the best music channel of the both of them; Left of Center. Whenever I drive hubby's car, it's the only station I listen to, and I never have to change it. It's a lot of indy music. Most of the bands I've never heard of, but the music is so great.

So, if you want good talk radio with lots of left leaning hosts, get Sirius, but if you want it for the music, XM has more choices. But, both are great. You'll get so spoiled, and you'll never go back to local radio again.