Goodbye XM Radio (1 Viewer)

[Stu Rosen]

My experience with XM and Sirius has been the opposite of Ron's though, admittedly, I have very little exposure to Sirius.

I have XM for almost a year now in a home unit and recently with the XMPCR, and I just love the music. I think my experience is a function of the music I'm after -- Adult Alternative, Soul, Alt-Country, World -- in those areas, the stations I listen to have NO commercials at all.

By contrast, when I've rented cars for business with Sirius, I'm hard pressed to find stations I like, forget about whether they're commercial free.

Ultimately, it comes down to content, and XM's musical content is rich and varied in the areas I care about. I can even request songs by e-mail and actually hear them within a few minutes.

 

[DaveBB]

I spend most of my XM time listening to channels 44 and 47.

Channel 44 Fred plays 80's and early 90's alt rock. Stuff like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Bahaus, REM and U2. Channel 47, Ethyl plays modern rock like Dave Matthews Band, Nickelback, Sarah McLaughlan etc. The best part about these channels is that they are 100% commercial free.

However I do wander down to channels 8,9,20 and 22. I have noticed more ads on those stations. I hope they don't increase it any more and can understand some listeners frustrations if that is their main listening.

 

[DaveBB]

BTW:
Delphi has a new XM boombox that will be out after the new year that in addition to XM has a CD/MP3 player along with AM and FM.

Delphi Boombox 2

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Dean,

It was a risky move taking out my XM equipment
and installing Sirius.

One would *think* that the pasture would have been
greener on the other side.

I can only say this on the eve of some MAJOR
programming changes over at Sirius....

Sirius has potential. They are listening to their
subscriber base. Starting tomorrow, they are revamping
their service. A few channels will be added and
we are being promised less repetition.

If Sirius continues to keep an open ear to their
subscriber base, I have no doubts that it will become
more listenable than XM radio. It needs to be. I
can't stomach the commercials that XM plays.

 

[Stu Rosen]

Here's my question. If you're into hits radio, or nostalgia radio (i.e., the 70's or 80's channels), what's so great about XM or Sirius?

I have XM, at home (SkiFi), in my office (XMPCR) and in my car (via Roady). I love it -- love it. But I listen to music that FM doesn't provide.

For example, I regularly listen to XM Cafe and the Loft (Adult Alternative, lots of artists you won't (or will only rarely) hear elsewhere -- i.e., Over the Rhine, Damien Rice, Joseph Arthur), or Bluesville, or X Country (an Alt-Country station), or Soul Street, or any of the great World Music stations.

I'm lucky that virtually all these stations are commercial-free, but even if they had commercials, I'd be a happy subscriber, given the content of these stations.

If my interest (such as with Ron and others in this thread) were in 70's music, well, don't you generally hear an awful lot of that stuff on commercial radio, such as (in New York) WCBS-FM?

I guess if I were interested in 70s or 80s music, I might really be bugged by the commercials, but (other than improved sound), I can't see how XM or Sirius would be a quantum leap over FM.

This isn't a criticism -- I just don't see the huge apeal of satellite radio when the type of music I listen to is (more or less) available on commercial radio. Or is it?

 

[Brian E]

Most "Oldies" type FM stations have absolutely no depth to what they play. From what I've read XM & Sirius both are much more than the old "top 40".

 

[Jed M]

Most "Oldies" type FM stations have absolutely no depth to what they play. From what I've read XM & Sirius both are much more than the old "top 40".

Exactly. The depth is the key. The day I hear Pink Floyd's "Fearless" on an FM channel is the day I cancel my subscription. My parents are absolutely thrilled with the XM Roady/Cambridge Soundworks table radio combo I gave them for Christmas because the commercial free depth of music the 50's and 60's play. I love satellite radio almost as much as I love satellite tv.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Satellite radio provides far broader entertainment
and depth than FM radio does.

 

[Stu Rosen]

OK -- I understand. When I drop by the 70s or 80s stations on XM, they play music that's so familiar to me that I (mistakenly) assumed that this was routine fare for classic rock stations or oldies stations on FM.

I'm not saying that FM plays the best music from the 70s (though I don't think that XM does either, at least not on the dedicated 70s station). What I value on radio is exposure to stuff I've never heard before, and that's a thrill a 70s music station -- almost by definition -- can't provide to me. Again, I wasn't putting down 70s music -- I just didn't see the "value added" that satellite radio provided.

And for what it's worth, a loop of "Slow Ride" might lead me to suicide, rather than merely to XM or Sirius.

 

[Al B. C]

The Loft is the best radio station that I have heard in many, many years.

XM is worth 10 bucks a month just for this one station alone.

 

[Stu Rosen]

The Loft is the best radio station that I have heard in many, many years.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

I'll put in my vote for X-Country, The Loft and XM Cafe. I've had XM Radio for only a month, and it's simply awesome getting introduced to artists I've never heard of before who produce such great music.

 

[TheLongshot]

For me, it is all about "Special X" and "Fine Tuning". Great stuff that I don't think Sirius will quite match.

Jason

 

[Lee L]

Well Ron, you got your wish. www.xmradio.com .

No commercials on music channels starting 2-1-04

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Holy Shit!

 

[David-S]

Wow, that could be big...


Aren't the "Local traffic and weather" going against the condition that they couldn't use the repeaters to provide local info?

 

[Lee L]

Not if they don't use repeaters to do it.

 

[Dave Bennett]

I for one am really exicted about the new XM lineup. Lucy sounds just like a FM channel we used to have in around 94-95. They played mostly 80's and early contemporary alt music (which meant up to about 1995 ).
It's too bad to see Special X go, i enjoyed listening to their odd "covers" show but if Lucy is as good as I'm hoping that will make up for it.
As for the traffic and weather, it sounds cool but I just really hope adding limited appeal local content won't compromise the overall audio quality of XM. I'm still a bit disappointed at the way XM sounds now (tinny in higher frequencies) but I'm so happy with the content I deal with it. If it gets worse I'll be really bummed. Oh well here's to commercial free music on Feb 1(though in reality it was only like 2 or 3 channels that I ever listened to that had commercials). With this announcement, I can't really see any reason why I would want Sirius unless the sound quality is remarkably better than XM.

 

[Brian L]

Sorry, I didn't see that you already saw the commercial free announcement and started a new thread.

Oh well, I did copy the contents of the e-mail I just recieved if you are so inclined to read it.

This is great news! The one thing that was pissing my off the most about XM is fixed.

Holy Shit!

Indeed!

BGL

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, I am rather pissed.

While it is nice that XM is going comercial free, they are canceling one of my favorite channels: Special X

Personally, neither of the anouncements improve the services much for me and downgrade the stations that I listen to the most. XM Music Lab now has to share time with Jam Bands. Fine Tuning may change formats, which would ruin the perfect balance that they have right now. Sirius doesn't add anything new, really.

I guess both companies want me to cancel my subscription...

Jason