As I said in my post from a couple three weeks ago, after living with XM Radio for three months there's a lot to like about it. Yesterday, it got even better as a number of Sirius satellite radio programs merged with XM programming. I spent a good portion of the day in the car listening to what's new. And what's good.
The selection of good music channels on XM grew precipitously yesterday with the addition of "Little Steven" Van Zandt's Underground Garage, Bruce Springsteen's E Street Radio, Jimmy Buffett's Radio Margaritaville, BBC Radio 1, Outlaw Country and Jam On (a channel featuring jam-bands), just to name a few. The 60's on 6 channel added some Sirius personalities in addition to some of the XM Radio people who were on the air.
There are now six comedy channels on XM Radio with the addition of Jamie Foxx's "The Foxxhole" channel and the Blue Collar comedy channel. Both channels are uncensored raising the number of uncensored comedy channels on XM to four. Blue Collar comedy channel features American comedians while "The Foxxhole" features African-American comedians.
XM's old X Country station was replaced by Outlaw Country. It's not quite as edgy as X Country was, but it's more eclectic with performers such as Lyle Lovett, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Lucinda Williams playing on it today.
I thought Radio Margaritaville would be Jimmy Buffett, all the time. But it was actually pretty good as I never heard a Buffett tune during the times that I was listening.
I really liked the Underground Garage. The programming was all over the place from the Beach Boys to the Kinks to White Stripes to the Ramones. It reminds me a lot of the Deep Tracks channel on XM, playing a lot of obscure "B" side tunes. It's a fun channel to listen to.
I was under the impression that I had NBA play-by-play on XM prior to today, but I couldn't find any games, save one - New York at San Antonio - the other night when I was driving down the road. I knew there were other games on, but that was the only one I could find. Now, there are five channels that are dedicated to just NBA programming and I'm sure some of the other sports channels XM has will be used for NBA games if more channels are needed. Not that I like to listen to NBA games (not like I like to listen to Major League Baseball games), but I thought it would be good to listen to for a while while driving down the road.
When I bought my new car, the sales guy pointed out that I had a 36 station pre-set on my radio. He said, "I don't know why anyone would need 36 pre-sets on a radio."
Well, now that there's all this new programming on XM, I wish I had a radio with 50 pre-sets.
If you were on the fence on getting a satellite radio, now's the time to hop off. The choices are broad and varied, the programming is stellar and for $12.95 a month it's a bargain.
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