XM Satellite Radio gets even better

This year, I signed up for XM Satellite Radio. I have loved it ever since. For $9.99 a month for your first receiver (and $6.99 a receiver after that in the Family Plan) you can listen to over 100 stations of radio delivered to you via satellite. I’m a huge music lover, and the ability to get away from the cookie-cutter stations available over FM was huge for me. I’ve made the switch and never looked back.

Now, XM is making their service even better. For one, they are eliminating all commercials for ALL of their music stations. Before it wasn’t much of a nuisance anyway as they would only play one or two a break, but now that things will be commercial free, it’s even better. Secondly they are adding a Punk/Ska station which has me all a twitter. Lastly, they are adding real-time traffic and weather stations for 15 major markets! Since Chicago is one of those, I’m in luck. I can tune to that station 24 hours a day to get the latest traffic and weather conditions for my area.

In addition, TiVo and XM announced that they are partnering to offer XM over TiVo’s Home Media Option (with appropriate hardware and subscription of course.) This is another good thing for both XM and TiVo. It’s a good time to be a gadget geek!