Sirius or XM (1 Viewer)

[Chris]

I'll admit, SIRIUS around here goes like hotcakes, if only to pick up NFL home team calls. Which is a giant selling point. Their FFL columns and programs, with statistical weighting make for an interesting listen as well.

A SIRIUS rep contacted me yesterday and asked me to name the top five things that I would consider important for SIRIUS to offer. We talked about a lot of different options.

My list was pretty simple:

Add back A&E
Drop CNN Headline News and add AP AllNewsStation
A New Age music station (Clannad, Enya, Enigma, Deep Forest)
SciFi Radio Network
RadioPlay Network

I'm really interested in Radioplay network, which is basically things like Twilight Zone, and scripts written specifically for radio telling 1/2 hour and 1hr length stories

I'd go for that.

SIRIUS intro'd 2.5G Radios recently, but the 3G radios are already in the works, so they say.

 

[TheLongshot]

Hmm... I had thought that they had a "New Age" station, but they must have gotten rid of it...

I know there was a movement to try to get a Celtic station at one time on SiriusBackstage.

Oh, another thing I just remembered: The Village on XM is far superior than Folktown on Sirius. The Village really covers a wide spectrum of Folk, while Folktown seems to be just folk rock...

Jason

 

[STLMIKE]

I know I've heard some Deep Forest on Sirius 64.

I have Sirius music channels through my Dish Network, and they do repeat a lot -- I really only listen to the dance/electronic and jazz stations -- so I'm sure the "hits" stations would probably do it more. It's not bad, but granted it's part of the Dish Network package.

I have XM in one of my cars, and I'm glad that's the one I bought. It's rare that I hear a repeat. I'm actually thinking about putting it in another car and have a question...but I'll ask that in a separate thread.

 

[Robert Spalding]

what seems to be the cheapest way to get right into XM?

 

[Jed M]

I would think the Roady 2 would be the easiest and cheapest way to get XM, but it won't provide the best quality in a car. Since I bought a new car, the Roady 2 is what I have been using since its a simple fix, but the sound is nowhere close to my old in dash Pioneer unit. I plan on using the Roady indoors once I decide on a new XM stereo for my new car.

 

[Chris]

Yeah, but it's mixed up with so much crap I really don't care to listen to. That genre could be seperated out.

Like I said, I listen to music maybe 5% of the time, and more then that I mostly listen to just MP3 CDs or audiobooks. When I'm with the kids (5/3) the SIRIUS stays pretty much on Radio Disney, so *shrug*.. and you want to talk about repetition.. dear god, Radio Disney plays the same song at least six times in a three hour span (if it's Hillary Duff, that is).

The one great thing about SIRIUS (for me) is sports and political talk. I enjoy it a great deal.

I can live with it staying mixed up for now; my biggest hope is of course, for the addition back of A&E or SciFi radio. But outside of that, I'm pretty content

In regards to music, though, I will say when I do flick over to Retro-alternative or Hip-Hop, SIRIUS has a pretty good mix I enjoy. Their hip-hop channels have often provided me with B-side mixes and have followed storylines all the way through (for example, they went end to end with the battle over Roxanne Shante with the back and forth raps all the way last week) Their live hip hop mixes are pretty good, and their exclusive hip-hop launches (for example, Nelly played all tracks from his two new CDs on SIRIUS Sept.14 before they hit the street, and a new channel controlled by Eminem & his label with "previews" of artists they intend to introduce) make that area of SIRIUS a strength.