XM charges a monthly fee of $9.99 dollars per month for basic service and $1.99 for each extra Premium channel. Sirius charges $12.95 per month all-inclusive. Both Satellite services are hemorrhaging cash and don't expect to be profitable for the next couple of years. However that hasn't stopped them from making very rich deals with major content providers including Howard Stern, who will move his show to Sirius in 2006 in a $500 million dollar deal, and Major League Baseball which signed an eleven year $650 million dollar deal with XM.

The Future: Thanks to XM and Sirius adroitly rolling out portable offerings, the companies were able to take advantage of the holiday spirit to meet their targets. Even with the big content deals, both services are far from being in the Black. With new competition ready to debut new services, will XM and Sirius be able to pay for their recent content shopping sprees?

>>> Digihear? December 2004

Part of Experiments In Sound, TestDrive will feature the lab results of our DJ Experiments so that everyone can get in on the action. Take the latest electronic music releases, mix vigorously with bleeding-edge DJ technology in a large beeker, and then cook the hell out of it! Be the first to hear about TestDrive by joining Futuremusic Direct.

Futuremusic wants to thank everyone who participated in The Next Big Thing 2004. John Digweed, Beatport, Alienware, M-Audio, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, PVDJ, PK Graphics, Ableton, The DubHouse, Propellerheads, Technics, FreeFloat, The Church, PCDJ and every DJ who entered this year's event thank you. From the sheer number of quality mixes, we can tell you that dance music is thriving in the United States. The amount of outstanding talent and creativity really blew us away, and every DJ who's putting their heart, mind and soul behind the music is a winner. John Digweed has made his decision and the winner is...