The New York Times says

The New York Times says that Satellite Radio Shows Growth. Maybe I’m wrong in thinking that it costs too much. Or maybe the Times is just rolling along in that usual tech “journalist” hype mode (all cool new technologies are great, until they turn out to be losers. Come to think of it, there is very little actual journalism about technology, mostly it’s just rewriting press releases and bucking to get sent stuff to review.)

According to the Times 25,000 to 30,000 people have signed up for XM satellite radio since mid-November. That’s about how many people listen to the top rated radio station in New York City in a given quarter hour, so I guess it’s not a bad start. And you can get the BBC (one of my favs) and NPR, which is a plus (how about RFPI?). But, as I noted before, you won’t get any funky, eclectic local radio. I’m also curious to see how eclectic or off-mainstream the music channels get.

I’m really of two minds on this thing. On the one hand I like the idea, but on the other, the execution looks like just more of the same: the same big corporations and networks regenerating, repurposing and “synergizing” the same content in a new form. If you take the same 100 CDs, put them in two changers on random, that’s the same as two different channels right? Somehow, I don’t have big hopes that satellite radio will equal greater diversity. Unless you see a big difference between ABC Family and Disney.

Of course, missing from this article is any actual evaluation of what programming XM radio spits out. That wouldn’t be “tech journalism,” now, would it.