iRadio Waves

XM Satellite Radio and Clear Channel had been locked in arbitration for some time on the issue: XM wanted to stay commercial-free, while Clear Channel, one of XM's investors, demanded that commercials be inserted into its four shows on XM:  Sunny, KISS, MIX, and Nashville.  The arbitration panel recently sided with Clear Channnel.

The community backlash has been huge.  In response, XM smartly decided to add four new, commercial-free channels, to offset (and compete with?) the sponsored ones.

I hope (and believe it is the case) that any Clear Channel content on iRadio will be commercial-free.  Keeping iRadio ad-free will be important for "commercial free" bragging rights and for positioning against terrestrial radio.  Either way, iRadio's huge number of stations (over 600) will certainly be a nice selling point.