Remember those days when you had ZERO commercials on cable TV? The idea of paying for TV was quite attractive when you thought of not having to watch goofy TV commercials all the time. You paid, then they didn’t have to advertise to air programming, it was just great!

Years went by and that ‘business model’ was gone.

Now you pay for ‘exclusive’ content, plus the commercials, over your long large 140+ channel lineup, it is close to a miracle to find a show or movie being broadcast without commercials. Actually if you are a subscriber for premium channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Encore, et al.) you get to enjoy to at least enjoy movies and cool shows without the commercials.

About 8 months ago, my wife and I subscribed to XM Radio. We both like music a lot, and the main reason was so she could listen to non-stop music when taking care of our kid during his first three months of life. It worked great!

We decided to keep the service as their programming is quite decent. Their wide variety of genres through their 100+ channels, makes it almost impossible to resist. I agree, we probably listen to 10% of their channels, but it was a good service, and it wasn’t overly expensive, considering that every time we went on a road trip, it would be quite the deal to have non-stop music on the road. Yes, an iPod would’ve worked, but the variety here is key.

Last week we were driving back from one of those weekend road trips. I was just appalled when I started listening to a McDonald’s commercial. WHAT THE HECK!!??

Not only that, but they were kind enough to display on the XM Receiver the title of the commercial… I can’t remember what it said, but it read something like: “MCDONALDS NEW DOLLAR MENU”.

Is this the end of 100% Commercial Free XM Radio? Is it even wort to be paying such a price for “nearly 100%” Commercial Free radio?

Of course I already checked their website for their claim about Commercial Free radio, and I found it. So I am still supposed to hear ZERO commercials.

I am not cheap, but I agreed to pay their monthly fee just because I can’t stand commercials on the radio, and if we (the subscribers) are supposed to be supporting it because we pay a premium for their service, wouldn’t it be fair to let us know so we could then make choices on whether to keep being a subscriber?

Last Monday, I sent a message through their site, and I haven’t received an answer.

What do you think? If you are an XM Radio subscriber, have you had the same issue?

Last week Steve Jobs released a letter pledging to get rid of DRM.

While the statement caused mixed reactions, and quite a few of them just flamed Jobs, a big positive one came from Yahoo! just yesterday.

Last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs created a huge stir when he called on the music industry to dump DRM, saying it hinders sales. Yahoo Music general manager Dave Goldberg predicts that by Christmas, most of Yahoo’s catalog will be DRM-free.

This is getting serious… only time will tell.

Update: Dave Goldberg has reportedly resigned from Yahoo! as of February 13th. Now that’s weird!

Today, Steve Jobs is pledging to get rid of DRM (Digital Rights Management) from music.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Will this be a leap forward towards having DRM-free downloads?

Only time will tell… It will be a hard battle against record companies, but even harder: against RIAA.

Back in the ‘Free Napster’ days Metallica was always the enraged band against downloading music… Remember Napster Bad? Remember Lars Ulrich giving a humongous list of Napster users to the federal government so they could be prosecuted?

Their ideal business model was to make their fans buy entire albums, they didn’t like the idea of people buying single songs… It was not good for business… oh… really??? Says who???

Well… they caved in.

“Over the last year or so, we have seen an ever-growing number of Metallica fans using online sites like iTunes to get their music. So…we are now offering fans the opportunity to obtain our songs individually.”

It’s good that they are doing this “because of their fans”… oh yeah, money is good too!

I was saddened to read that Robert Moog died this last weekend, due to a brain tumor.

I don’t think we have any idea of how much music involves ‘The Moog’ synthesizer. But we sure know the impact he had on contemporary music.

He will be missed.