I remember when I first got my XM Radio. I was still in high school and didn’t have a credit card, so my mother agreed to use her credit card. It was the Roady 2. It had a two-line black and white display (you could change the backlit color!), TuneAlert (it’d beep if a band you liked was playing on another channel), and an FM transmitter; most importantly, it was on sale. The hardware was already behind that of mp3 players, but it was satellite radio: a brand new venture into delivering content programmed by DJ’s and program directors. It had serendipity, a great and extensive catalog of music, and gave you great music you didn’t have to manage.

Music, Talk, Comedy, Sports, and more. There were so many channels and so much variety to choose from. It seemed impossible to not be entertained at any given moment.

Then XM began pissing money into advertising. Feeling pressure to finally churn a profit and gain subscribers quickly, it began advertising everywhere. But with the extra advertising came the loss of focus on XM’s programming. Eventually bad management from Hugh Panero and the rest of the board turned XM into a glorified portal for the same type of content on terrestrial radio.

Then the merger came, and it finally solidified my concerns: XM’s ingenuity and creativity had died. The playlists on most channels shrunk, I heard all sorts of repetition, and the discovery of new music stopped. To make matters worse, SiriusXM raised their prices to try to off set losing subscribers and money.

Upon finally canceling my XM account, I remembered Pandora was offering a new premium account service, called Pandora One. It would cost me a fraction of the price of XM, so I went for it, and I’m really glad with my decision.

Pandora gets criticized by my friends for being reptitive, which was true. It seemed like Pandora just played 5-7 artists per “station” and repeated songs too frequently.

I’ve noticed over the past few days, however, that the music catalog feels a lot more extensive. While I do use “QuickMix,” Pandora no longer players the same artist in a single hour, and I’m discovering new artists I’ve never heard on Pandora before. This is probably a result of better computer programming of whatever runs Pandora, and an acquisition of new music.

Whatever the cause, I’m glad.