Following The US Open On XM Radio

There are a couple of articles hitting the news wires about XM Radio’s golf channel, which plans wall-to-wall coverage of the US Open this week.

So how is golf on the radio? Not bad, actually. I’ve listened to the XM Radio broadcast over the internet and it almost has me thinking that I will get an XM radio for my car.  In a sense, it’s a lot like listening to baseball on the radio. If you already know something about the game—the lingo, and how its played—then the announcer’s descriptions of the settings and the shots are interesting. The broadcasts also seem to spend a lot of time on interviews and scoring updates.

It’s a niche market, to be sure, but XM Radio is willing to put out the dollars to produce it. The price tag per tournament is apparently $50,000 to $75,000.

XM also is trying a neat promotion. They’re giving fans at tournaments XM radios to use while they’re on the course. That way, they can follow what’s going on on the other holes. (How long will it be before Stevie decides that someone’s headphones are too loud and rips them off their head?)

Read the articles syndicated by the Wall Street Journal and by the Orange County Register.