Om Malik notes the deal between XM and AOL, which sounds good, but you have to wonder why they are making you pay more for the option of high quality internet streaming. Sirius (I am a customer) gives it to you for free… With the XM deal, you are paying for XM AND paying for AOL and now you have to add yet another fee on top. Just give it away… loyalty marketing people! I can’t imagine every subscriber is going to use it or even close (at least not today) so the cost of handling this can’t possibly be that brutal. Perks and features are good on top of quality content programming.
Looks like there is more music coming our way on the web. AOL and XM Satellite Radio just announced a deal where AOL will stream 200CD-quality XM radio channels over the web, for a monthly fee of $5 a month. 150 Lower bit-rate channels will be available to web users for free.
Update – Should have read that more carefully last night… AOL customers get the service, but XM’s have to pay.