by Linda Sunkle-Pierucki

Created on: June 11, 2008

I am thoroughly hooked on XM Satellite Radio. XM was my choice simply because they managed to make it to market before Sirius did-and I was waiting for them. In fact, the first satellite radio provider out of the starting gate would have a captive audience they didn't even know they had. I was actually emailing the XM crew before they offered service with programming ideas-they rudely told me I didn't know what I was talking about! In the interim, they've come around to my way of thinking.

As a long-haul truck driver, I had fought to maintain radio reception for years. Today's trucks, starting with their fiberglass bodies in about 1995, don't present enough of a ground plane for antennas to work well. As I was always moving, I had real problems maintaining a station for very long. Multiply my lack of reception by about 3 million other truckers and you can see a huge market waiting for the opportunity to sign on. If you've ever spend a long lonely night driving across the desert without radio or a conversation companion, you'll know how desperate the situation was becoming.

FM radio broadcasts have never had the carrying power of AM-which is no problem to the local resident who listens to FM from home and never leaves the signal area on his way to and from work. AM reception on the 50,000 watt clear channel stations assigned around the country used to put out a signal that could be picked up over several states most nights. However, with the popularity of FM which only carries short distances, the AM stations lost much of their strength due to interference, new government broadcasting patterns and small micro-stations. Many went out of business. By the time FCC changes allowed one company to buy up hundreds of small stations and put them on automated, canned programming, there wasn't much to listen to. Music is fine-for awhile. However, to drive for long periods of time, one needs to keep their mind alert and music just doesn't do it.

XM started out to focus on the "commercial-free" music channels as their mainstay. As with many new start-ups in the early part of the century, they planned to attract an audience of primarily young people who wanted such things as "Techno-Dance" music 24 hours a day. They soon found out their first and most loyal audience was truck drivers, whose average is 41 years old-and they wanted to listen to the news, sports, talk shows and home improvement channels. They also wanted "The Truckin' Bozo" show and other industry-specific information

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