I faced this question a few months ago. I had thought I was going to buy XM, but on exploring the options I went for Sirius. The availability of NPR and PRI on Sirius was a big factor. They seemed to have more. I was also drawn to Sirius' advantage in music for hippies -- jam-band stuff. My only regret is that XM has baseball while Sirius has football and basketball and hockey. Baseball is a great thing to listen to in the car and I would have liked to have the full schedule of games to surf among while I drive. I am very happy with the choice I made, though.

DirecTV switched all their digital music channels over to XM a little while back, and I think it sucks ass. I hardly ever listen to it now, whereas I used to have the music on whenever I was near the TV.

/anecdotal

Hmm, it seems there's a little more up my proverbial alley with Sirius. How about a similar home/car/portable product that's not ungodly expensive?

Ah, the actual receiver. Can't help you there. I spent fairly big for a unit that I plug into the back of my Prius' touch screen controller. It was expensive, but I like it.

I think there's a lower cost hand-held unit. I need to research that myself!

I've had Sirius for maybe a year now. I listen to it mainly in the car, because it is indeed a lot better than the FM selection up here. It's a big like Cable, though... you get a bunch more stations but they aren't necessarily of high quality or music variety. Sirius, actually, hired some marketing guy who told them to use a "hits" based format on all stations, so there's actually less variety than before.

So it's ok, but not great. I enjoy it in the car but it's been replaced by internet radio at home.

I got XM for my husband a few years ago. It is probably the only gift I've ever given him that he truly loved.

I debated about getting XM for a while, then when I found out that Sirius had some NPR programming, I spent some time trying to decide between the two.

In the end, I bought an iPod. I haven't listened to NPR in over a year except for the occasional "Prairie Home Companion", and I don't miss it at all. Even if I did, I could just download some of the shows, podcasts, etc.