When Bill Woeste told friends he was paying $10 a month for radio reception, “people looked at me like I was crazy,” he said. Then he let them sample the 100 channels on his new XM satellite car radio.

        They were impressed with the CD-quality digital sound, and the variety of jazz, rock, country, Latin, dance, classical, news, sports and talk stations.

        “It's a great thing,” said Mr. Woeste, owner and president of Beechmont Motors.

        Because satellite radios have been marketed initially to motorists — through $300 in-dash receivers or as an optional feature on new luxury cars — Mr. Woeste had an XM radio before national service launched Nov. 12.

        The radio picks up stations beamed from one of two satellites — called “Rock” and “Roll” — with a small antenna shaped like a shark fin or computer mouse. Customers pay a $10 monthly subscription fee for the audio service, the radio equivalent to cable TV.

        Mr. Woeste quickly fell in love with the 12 news channels from CNN, USA Today, Fox News, CNBC, CNNFN, Bloomberg, BBC World Service and C-SPAN.

        “Local stations do news on the hour, but there was no (local) radio station that I could find that has news whenever I'm in the car,” said the Indian Hill resident.

        Thad Karbowsky of Glendale got an XM radio for his 37th birthday this month so he could listen to Sporting News Radio talk shows. He bought a detachable Sony Plug-and-Play model to use in either of his two cars or with his home stereo system.

        “I'm a big sports fan and I love listening to the national sports shows,” said Mr. Karbowsky, a finance officer for Sun Chemical.

        Rave reviews by Mr. Karbowsky and Mr. Woeste are typical of the response to the subscription service, said Chance Patterson, vice president for corporate communications of XM Satellite Radio, based in Washington, D.C.

        “This is one of those products that if people try it, they love it. XM is offering music and choices and a quality of presentation that they don't get anywhere else today,” Mr. Patterson said.

        “We are discovering that people are very passionate about this.”

        Time magazine has called XM the “invention of the year.” Popular Science named it the “best of what's new” in electronics. Fortune magazine recently dubbed it the “product of the year.”

        Yet the satellite radio situation isn't static free:

        • XM receivers aren't compatible with the rival Sirius satellite radio service launching in early 2002.

        For $13 a month, Sirius will offer 100 channels, including National Public Radio, Discovery Channel Radio, Live Broadway, House of Blues, Sci Fi Channel radio, History Channel, A&E and Public Radio International.

        Think of this as the radio version of the VHS-vs.-Beta war in the early days of VCRs.

        • A monthly subscription fee must be paid for each radio receiver — which could make in-home listening very expensive.

        “I've got two cars, a stereo, a clock radio in the bedroom, a radio in the kitchen and radios in other rooms of my house. At $10 a month per set, that adds up real quick,” said Darryl Parks, AM operations director for Clear Channel's four Cincinnati stations. “So am I going to drop $70 a month on XM Radio to hear the same songs I now hear for free?”

        Not necessarily.

        Mr. Karbowsky's has stereo speakers in each room of his house wired to his stereo. He can listen to XM — or Internet radio — in any room of his house, he says.

        Satellite radio offers some distinct advantages over the decades-old AM FM technologies:

        • Satellite signals won't break up on hilly Tristate highways and streets. (But they're hard to get inside parking garages.)

        • Unlike most AM stations, satellite channels won't be hard to hear at night. (XM's ESPN channel broadcast the World Series games, which were difficult for some Tristate residents to hear on weak WBOB-AM.)

        • Satellite listeners can hear the same station on a coast-to-coast drive, instead of searching for new stations every 50 miles.

        Fans of Mike McConnell, Dale “Trucking Bozo” Sommers or Bill Cunningham also can listen to the WLW-AM personalities anywhere in the nation on XM. Clear Channel, the world's largest radio company and owner of WLW-AM, is an XM investor along with General Motors, American Honda Motor Co. and DirecTV.

        • XM promises no more than six minutes of advertising per hour. The typical commercial load on Tristate stations ranges from 15 to 20 minutes an hour.

        • Satellite radio also offers dozens of full-time formats not available here on AM or FM — acoustic rock, progressive fusion, jazz, blues, Latin jazz, traditional country, bluegrass, disco, Caribbean, Spanish pop hits, reggae, comedy, opera, Hindu/Indian, Mandarin/Chinese, love songs, show tunes, movie sound tracks and the Disney Kids channel.

        “There's a great deal of angst, in both the commercial and noncommercial radio world, on how this will all shake out,” said Richard Eiswerth, WGUC-FM president and general manager.

        Commercial stations could lose ratings — and advertising revenues — to satellite channels. Public stations could lose listeners and donors.

        “Until satellite radio, in major markets community radio had a lock on fringe formats, like classical, jazz, bluegrass or Spanish language programming. You're suddenly opening the floodgates on competition,” Mr. Eiswerth said.

        “We are concerned about satellite radio,” he continued. “It is being marketed to people with fluid cash who buy luxury cars like BMWs and Cadillacs who don't mind paying $10 extra a month for something. That's our demographic. Very few teen-agers on skateboards will be going out to buy these radios.”

        So WGUC-FM will stress its localism to listeners. The station will promote programs with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera and the May Festival.

        “We don't anticipate an impact from satellite radio until it reaches several million subscribers — and that probably won't happen for another two years,” Mr. Eiswerth said.

        Mr. Parks at WLW-AM sees satellite radio as just another media vying for the public's attention — along with TV, the Internet, theaters, video games and movie rentals.

        “We're all fighting for a piece of that entertainment pie,” Mr. Parks said.

        “I think there's a place for satellite radio to exist,” he said. “It kind of depends on how dissatisfied people are with (AM/FM) radio.”

        E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/kiese

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