using sirius to drive office mates crazy (1 Viewer)

[Micah Cohen]

Hey, I have a great new use for Sirius Sat Rad! The new use is driving my office mates batty! I have been insisting that we try new channels, instead of the tedious and repetitive "deep tracks" rock station they seem way too comfortable with.

Today, so far, we have begun a trek thru the channels in the 90s (I mean, channel #92, you know?) -- world music and mexican stuff (polkas on speed!) and some "tropical island" kind of stuff. It is driving my already seriously cracked office mates to distraction (and cracking me up!).

I love variety, I want to EXPERIENCE all these music channels, you know? I mean, if not, what's the POINT? And my, shall we say, "limited" office mates have sort of been stuck on this rock station forever. I'm tired of hearing Bob Seger/Rush/new non-Pink Floyd. It seems like that's all they play!

So today, we're doing CARRIBEAN RHYTHMS! MEXICAN POLKAS! I can not wait till one of the Admin Staff CRACKS and kills us all! She is going nuts! (I, meanwhile, am SAMBAing!)



Sirius Sat Rad as murder weapon!

MC

 

[Micah Cohen]

Oh well. So much for that.

Out of the office to the bank and the printer, and I return and the crackpots here have returned to the idiotic rock station. How many times can you listen to the same crappy songs, and live thru this awful talk talk talk about nothing, over and over?

Time once again to close my office door, fire up some CDs, and wonder (a) why I am not working from home more often and (b) why anyone would PAY for boring, repetitive satellite radio...

MC

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Micah,

You picked the wrong satellite service.

Sirius is all about repetition. You can
drive anyone crazy keeping the same station
on all day.

In fact, from the complaints I have been
reading lately over on the Sirius forum the
repetition has gotten exceedingly worse.

I have a subscription to Sirius and I
rarely listen to it.

If you had gone with XM you would not be
hearing nearly as much repetition.

I think your opinion of satellite radio
would be different if you were listening
to XM.

 

[Micah Cohen]

Please, do not say "you."

I am an XM guy all the way. I do not subscribe, but I got to meet the big wigs there when I wrote a piece about them for the Polk Audio newspaper (a PDF is available on the Polk website somewhere), and listened for a while when I was involved in the home tuner project when I was at Polk. The people at XM are REAL RADIO PROS, and I envy them. Just being in the XM building (worth a visit if you're in DC) made me feel that super happy feeling I had when I was a wee tot working in radio myself. (Could also have just been gas, but I kid.)

WE here at Definitive -- owned by Directed, who makes the Sirius tuners, I guess -- are sort of "part of" Sirius because of that. So... Here in the office, we have Sirius playing.

And I want to STRANGLE everyone who thinks this is good radio. This... is... boring... garbage. And I am being kind.

I am thankful that the HTF is here and lets me blow off this kind of steam.

Plus, if I can convince just one person to forego Sirius in favor of the superior programming of XM, I have done my duty as a fierce pirate of the open seas!

MC

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Micah,

My apologies. I misunderstood you.
I thought you were the Sirius subscriber.

You met the XM people....I met the Sirius people.

I was not impressed. They are people molded
from FM radio. They told me flat out that
satellite radio needed to be dumbed down so
that it would appeal to those listening for
short periods of time. They even told me that
XM would have to go the same route by tightening
their playlists. Thank God they were wrong.

You called the folks at XM "REAL RADIO PROS."
Trust me -- it shows. At Sirius, it's all
about consultants and restrictive playlists.

For those that like the same songs played
over and over again, I salute you! There is
nothing wrong with your tastes and Sirius
will definitely fill your bill.

I was just not impressed by what I saw when
I was there and let down by the manner in
which I was treated. Had I visited XM
I am sure my experience would have been
more positive.

 

[Micah Cohen]

I encourage you to visit XM. First of all, the building and facilities are amazing themselves. Second of all, the people are incredible -- happy, smart, dedicated to real creative radio. I was VERY skeptical. But David Butler and Phil Whitworth (and everyone else) just won me over, and made me feel the love that I used to feel in radio when it was about THE MUSIC, not about playlists and consultants and target markets and blah. The DJs at XM struck me as people who LOVE the music and want you to love it, too. They are not there to chit chat with you, they are there to play music and enjoy their lives as real programming disc jockeys.

By niche-serving, XM nails the concept of real creative radio.

I was going to say that just one XM channel, say "Hank's Place," or even "Frank's Place," EVEN IF THOSE SELECTIONS ARE NOT YOUR KIND OF MUSIC, just merely as an example of amazing, pure, real radio programming skill, just one XM channel trumps anything I've heard on Sirius.

But then I thought, XM channels are amazing -- the decades channels, especially the early years... Sheesh, I could go on and on -- and it's just a matter of being true to real honest radio programming.

Amazing, really. The future of radio is XM, programming wise.

Now, if only they can break out of the red and make the business model work...

MC

 

[Chris]

I do want to add something here though While I'm a SIRIUS person (and rarely listen to the music channels, though when I do, they provide what I want) I would point out that if this is being used in an office, for overhead (or "wait" music, or "background" music, then you either use FM (commercial radio) or you use a lic. service where all ASCAP fees are paid..

Both services do provide BMI/ASCAP paid services for your business:

http://www.xmradio.com/commercial/index.jsp
http://www.sirius.com/ (major announcement expected later today, so website is down being changed...)

Anyway, I'm glad people are happy with the service they are happy with

 

[Ronald Epstein]

From the feedback I received and from further
correspondence over the past year the DJs I spoke
with at Sirius are very unhappy with their lack of
freedom to play what they want (and think should
be played).