Satellite Radio Playground

by Demian Russian

Slacker, the internet radio service provider, added the integration of ABC News (NYSE: DIS) to its service yesterday. While news content is a welcome addition to the Slacker service, there are several drawbacks which highlight why it’s no match for Sirius XM’s (NASDAQ: SIRI) superior news content. Slacker seems to be taking steps to be more like Sirius XM Radio. First they added a couple of comedy channels, and now a news channel, and it’s not free. Did I just hear “subscription model?” Well, it is free for the 14 day trial period, but after that it will run you $4.99 a month ($3.99 a month with a prepaid annual subscription). After the free trial period, users who want access to the ABC News channel must subscribe to Slacker Radio Plus. In addition to the ABC News channel access, Slacker Radio Plus features no banner or audio ads, unlimited song skips, song lyrics, and mobile station caching. Sounds great right? It depends on how you look at it.

I tried out the free trial of Slacker’s ABC News and I discovered several drawbacks compared to the Sirius XM Satellite Radio service. Slacker’s ABC News channel consists of segments from ABC News programs, which means they are prerecorded, which means they are not live, which means you are listening to old news. I like to listen to live news as it’s happening. I know the Slacker ABC News content isn’t live, because the player would allow me to skip to the next segment when I first turned it on. I was not able to determine exactly how old the news was that I was hearing, as no indication of time was offered at any time during the programming I listened to.

Only one news channel is offered with the Slacker service. Besides not being live, Slacker’s ABC News channel only offers snippets of stories — which means you don’t get the whole story. Sirius XM’s subscribers get live access to several different news channels, including CNN, Fox, CNBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, and The World Radio Network. Sirius XM’s news channel offerings include: financial, political, medical, entertainment, human interest, National and International news. You don’t just get the top stories, you get in-depth analysis and opinion of those stories. Read More