Goodbye XM Radio (1 Viewer)

[Paul W]

Ron,

It's the same songs over and over again.

Some of the XM channels appear to be guilty of this as well.
My girlfriend will only tolerate the Toptracks and the Mix channels. I see now that the on-star and avis commercials are freaking annoying and I have already noticed both of these channels are playing the same artists repeatedly.

I cherish the alone time in my car so I can listen to Watercolors, Bluesville and XM Classics, none of which repeat very often (and no commercials!).

I'm glad you went through this exercise. I hope both XM and Sirius will listen to their fan-base and improve their service.

 

[Michael Cucka]

Ron -

Absolutely - that would kill it for me all the way!

I spend very little time on the more popular channels - blues, metal, jazz, classical for me - and they don't suffer from the same repetition.

Now, someone needs to come up with a universal receiver - receives both XM and Sirius...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Now, someone needs to come up with a universal receiver - receives both XM and Sirius...

Michael,

Done deal.

3rd party vendors coming out with attachments
that will let you plug an XM tuner directly
into a SIRIUS head unit and have that unit not
only play XM music but display SONG & ARTIST text
as well as display presets.

How about THAT!

 

[Michael Cucka]

Ron -

Now you're onto something!

All we need is a venture capitalist...

 

[ScottCarr]

I have been following this thread and as it has progressed I have been a litle more critical of Sirius.

With that said I truly enjoy Sirius and their programming. Spending about 2 hours a day in the truck I can only recall hearing the same song on the Pulse on one or two occassions. But stil far less than FM.

XM must have some awesome programming.

I wanted music without commercials and a variety of it. That is what Sirius has provided.

I haven't listened to XM but having commercials I was turned off. In my case having to change the channel because of of a lousy song is less frustrating than tolerating commercials.

Just curious what stations did/do Sirius listeners listen too?

thanks
scott

 

[David-S]

scott-

I usually hang out in the "rock" section, 15-22 or so, occasionally moving into jazz and classical if I'm in the mood...

I listened to 70's and 80's today at work (just to see), and didn't hear any repeats in around 7 hours of listening (combined)... I don't know all of the pop music as well, so I didn't notice if any of the songs were radio edited...


I'm a little surprised that people are saying the sirius DJ's are bland, and that makes it more like FM... for me, I like their professional attitude (it seems about the music), instead of trying to self-promote by being "whacky"... Of course, I've never listened to Xm much (only a little of their web trials) so I'm not sure if this whackiness is what you mean by personality...

Hey, I look at it like this... there are slightly over 1 million people with satellite radio, there are 270 million people without it... let's worry about fighting between the two when they churn market is bigger than the untapped one...

 

[Jed M]

I just got back from 4 days in San Diego with my parents. I can report (since I really had no idea) that the 50's and 60's stations play no commercials and heard one repeat in about 20 hours (three bells by the browns). It was an amazing mix of music and my parents actually fell in love with XM (and quite honestly, they really liked no commercials, but they were blown away with the variety of music they were hearing), definitely not all "heartbreak hotel" and "tuti frutti" type stuff, but the real music people listened to, the stuff they don't play on FM or AM anymore. In my comparison a few months back I also found the song selection is much wider and IMO less generic on XM, like Ron and many others have. Just thought I would share my story before I am out for a few days.

 

[SteveK]

Jed- Although I usually listen to other channels, I enjoy the 50's and 60's for the very reason you mention - the tremendous variety of music they play. I've listened to a lot of "oldies" stations, but they never seemed to play much (or any) of the quieter "Pop" songs by Perry Como, Doris Day, etc that you hear on the 50's channel; they always seemed to play the faster songs by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, etc. I guess they focus on the music of the mid to late 50's, whereas XM plays music from the entire decade. I must admit it is sometimes a bit of a shock to hear a Perry Como song followed by Little Richard, but at least it's a good variety of music, not endless songs of the same style.

Actually, it's getting hard to find 50's music of ANY kind anymore, as "oldies" now seems to mean 70's and 80's, not 50's and 60's. And music from the 40's? Forget it! So it's great to have XM so that music from 40, 50 or 60 years ago is still available. You simply can't find that on FM, at least not in my area. Frank's Place is another great channel, and again you won't find comparable music on any FM station in most cities.

That's what I enjoy so much about XM: hearing music you simply would not find anywhere else. I've reached the point where it is almost irrelevant whether or not a particular channel airs commercials. I enjoy the CONTENT so much that I am willing to endure an occasional commercial. Obviously it's a bonus if the channel is commercial-free, but that is never my criteria for choosing to listen to a channel. To me, repetitive playlists would be much more of a drawback than an occasional commercial. The relative lack of repetition on most XM channels, along with the tremendous variety of musical styles available, is (for me) the best part about XM, not the fact that some channels are commercial free.

Steve K.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

I think you guys are missing something important here. The repeats are NOT limited to the "Decades" channel. They are limited to the "70's" channel in particular. I very rarely hear any repeats at all, and I spend a lot of time on the "50's" and "60,'s" channel. My brother likes the "80's" channel, and he reports very little repeats as well. If there is a repeat, it will not be in a 12 hour period! I also know that there are very few repeats on the rock channels.

You should also know that Sirius does not just play hits all the time. They do play a lot of hits, I'll admit, which is one of the reasons I like the service, because I can always find a song I know, but I can also find a lot of music I have never heard before: B side cuts. Ron seems to leave that information out, and keep in mind, he has only evaulated ONE or TWO channels for any significant lenght of time, and even that was less than a week.

 

[David Broome]

Here are some stats on the 80's on 8 channel, regarding repeats From Dec 1 to Dec 4 at 10:00 CST:

The OnStar commercial has been played 25 times (at least the commercials labelled as OnStar have)

Bose has been played 21 times

The following songs have been played three times:
Dreams, Van Halen
Eye Of The Tiger, Survivor

101 songs have been played twice

All others have been played once

If you want stats on another channel or time period let me know

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Well over the air radio is awful so I decided to sample both Sirius and Xm in my Bosses cars, his wife has Sirius and him XM. After listening a bit I went out and bought a Nomad Zen. I now use the 40 MB to hold what I want to listen to and have the zen Mix it up. Sattelite Radio is alot better than Off the Air. But that's not really saying much.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Ron seems to leave that information out, and keep in mind, he has only evaulated ONE or TWO channels for any significant lenght of time, and even that was less than a week.

This is not true.

I listen to Totally '70s, '60s Vibrations,
Soul Revue and Movin' Easy.

The station is repeating songs daily on those
channels I have listened to - moreso than XM ever did.

It seems the station doesn't have a wide variety of
music on hand. Can't tell you how many times in the
past few days I heard You are the Sunshine of my
Life, Piano Man, You Are So Beautiful, Maybe I'm
Amazed and Rare Earth's Celebrate

When you don't dig deep, you tend to heavily repeat
the stuff you have on hand.

 

[TheLongshot]

Satelite Radio is alot better than Off the Air. But that's not really saying much.

Well, that's what I'm afraid that I'm going to find out after trying XM. My experience with Sirius has made me rather frustrated with where Satelite Radio is right now. Personally, I'm surprised anyone with a broadband connection would choose Satelite Radio over Internet Radio, since some of those stations are head and shoulders better than what Satelite offers.

I'm hoping with XM's more eclectic library, that I will be proven wrong.

Jason

 

[David Broome]

How do you get broadband internet radio in your car?

 

[TheLongshot]

How do you get broadband internet radio in your car?

Good question. I have a friend of mine who has one of those Kyosera Palm phones, which also has internet connectivity. He's still looking for a streaming MP3 player so that he can listen to Radio Paradise in his car.

Course, my comment ment to say Satelite Radio at home. I only listen to Satelite radio in the car, since I can listen to Radio Paradise at home or at work.

Jason

 

[Joshua Clinard]

This is not true. I listen to Totally '70s, '60s Vibrations, Soul Revue and Movin' Easy.

Sorry for the misinformation. Still, that is a very limited number of channels to be making a judegement on the service as a whole.

 

[Brian-K-Owens]

I have been listening to XM for 2 years now. . .If I could just quit hearing about the great BOSE systems and the On-Star commercials I would be happy again. I think the same commercials over and over kill me more than the fact that there are commercials. . .

I've also read that beginning in January, they will have a product (not named yet) that will convert ANY HU with an RCA jack into an XM-ready HU. I haven't seen any details on this at all, but more information should be coming soon.

If you want a headunit that will do both, find a Delphi DEA 100 at a truck stop. The first HU to do both XM and Sirius without any type of adapter (been around since Feb. 2002)!!! You can get a XM receiver/antenna or a Sirius receiver/antenna, and ethier is just a plug-n-play. With a small switching circuit, you could switch back and forth between them if you wanted to. . . .

Brian

 

[Diallo B]

moved

 

[ScottCarr]

I am somewhat confused about what is considered "repeat"

Are we discussing the repeat factor as:
1. the same song played more than once on the same station with in a 24 hour period. midnight to midnight?

2. the same song played on Monday tuesday etc.?

3. The same song played once on channel X and then heard on channel y?

If XM plays 5 minutes of commercials a hour that equates to 2 hours a day of hear bose is good, bose is great chose your color white r black slate.

and of course Onstar - have no fear Onstar is here.

 

[Brian-K-Owens]

The thing I see about songs repeated would be that they seem to rotate through their song selection repeating a group of songs for X number of days. Maybe they should make that group of songs a little larger. IMO, there were enough songs in the 80's that I should not have to hear Eye of the Tiger two or three times in the same day on channel 8. . . . .

Brian