Terrestrial vs. Satellite

With the economic downturn in full effect, people have started to cut back on unnecessary expenses. Going out to dinner, buying that new dress or not spoiling their kids as much. One of these things that people will likely decide whether to cut out is satellite radio.

While satellite radio does have its benefits, there are some who think it to be an unnecessary luxury. I will compare the benefits and negatives between satellite radio and terrestrial radio (the one you can listen to in your car radio).

Satellite Radio Satellite radio offers many things terrestrial radio cannot, the main one being no commercials. You pay a monthly fee, around $10, so that you can skip the commercials and just listen to your favorite music nonstop. The only stations that have commercials are talk show ones but that is so the hosts can have a break from talking. There are around 200 radio stations to choose from that range from sports, comedy, I even have heard an Elvis station. There are two main satellite radio stations, XM and Sirius. Both offer a lot of different options in terms of stations for people to listen to. Some businesses have gone to using satellite in the workplace. This is in hopes of drawing in customers and not making them listen to commercials. At one of my summer jobs the owner had satellite radio for this reason (and so he could hear Howard Stern). A lot of people liked that they could sit down and enjoy their food without having the hear commercials.

The downside is that you have to pay to listen to the radio. There is the monthly fee that but that is not the only thing that you have to pay for. In order to listen to satellite radio, you have to buy a receiver in order to listen to satellite radio. At Best Buy the cheapest receiver that I found for both XM or Sirius is $69.99. If you want to go high-end though you can get one with GPS, a CD/DVD player, iPod-ready satellite radio for $2,000.

Terrestrial Radio The biggest and most obvious positive is that it is free, as long as you have a car. Also with terrestrial radio you are more likely to get a local flavor. You will get local updates on news, traffic and other going ons around your city. They will discuss local concerts, who is playing, where they are playing and how the concerts were. If you want to call in to request a song you are more likely to get through on a local station than a national show where people from all over the country are doing the same.

Having a free radio saves you the money that you would be spending on satellite radio but you have to listen to those annoying commercials. Then there is also the loss of a sense of the radio being personalized to what is going on around you and that which you are going to be concerned with, especially if you like to listen to talk shows.

Verdict It all comes down to what you prefer. Pay vs. Free. Big-time vs. Local. I like to listen to sports talk shows and I'm cheap, so I will almost always listen the local take on things when I'm walking around the mall rocking the Boom Box.

Until next time, Namaste.