XM Goes Commercial Free! (1 Viewer)

[Chris]

The complaint RE: consultants is not a great one, either.. realize, on their staff payroll, XM has 6 persons listed as "Music Consultants" and Sirius has 6 as well

No matter how deep your playlist, etc. consultants are designed to help shape the nature of channels, the order and flow in which songs are played, etc. They serve much more of a purpose then the payola-esque mystique you seem to place on them.

Having worked in radio for a while, I can tell you that consultants do a lot more then that, like set rules about play orders (ie: "You -can't- play more then X of artist Y in a Z period of time" and so on.

BTW, ditto some of the above.. as long as SIRIUS keeps a hold on the NFL, I'm staying put.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

The Sabo guy has more control over talk programming, than on music channels.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Joshua,

I'll be the second person to ask you this....

Where did you hear that?!

Was there an official announcement? Do you have
some inside information?

I know January 19th is being touted as a big day
for Sirius, but double the playlist? Where
on earth did you hear that?

Just interested in what I missed.

 

[Dave Bennett]

Maybe where some of you folks are Sirius outsold XM at retail, but near me the XM Roady became nearly impossible to find a few weeks before Christmas due to the free Home kit offer. I was lucky and picked one up Thanksgiving weekend so I could get the $20 Circuit City rebate as well as the free home kit. There were plenty of Sirius plug and play units though.
Either way, I think the competition is good. Look at DirecTV and Dish. I'm sure if Dish wasn't first at offering local channels DirecTV wouldn't have given many smaller markets locals. Conversely, i'm sure if DirecTV hadn't had such huge success with their premium sports programming, Dish wouldn't have been as likely to jump on that.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Ron,

I heard this from someone who talked to Joe & Jay for several hours at CES. Join the Sirius Chat room sometime after around 8 EST, and you will hear lots of cool info you would otherwise miss on the forum. Sometimes Sirius reps pop in there and report info.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Joshua,

Thanks.

Actually made a phone call to someone who was
at CES and confirmed this.

Great News!

 

[Jed M]

I doubt that will be possible with Sirius since by Satellite's nature it should be delayed a few seconds so it won't sync up with the television. But I agree about Len Dawson and the boys.

I love this competition. I agree that the main reason XM got rid of commercials is because of Sirius and that to me is great. I can't wait to see what Sirius does next. They will have to go above and beyond what XM has done in order to justify there price and to me, its going to really hard. Just an observation, but XM hit them where it hurts the most, considering Sirius rode its "only commercial free service" to get where they are today. I anticipate they are preparing to drop a bomb on XM, cause if they don't all of this great competition may come crumbling down, and as an XM subscriber I honestly don't want that to happen.

 

[Brian Fitterman]

I totaly agree here. I cant wait. I have been with XM since it was first available in CT. Since early Nov. the commercials have become way to frequent. And the fact that they are the same 4 or 5 commercials all the time makes it worse.

I am thinking about buying a 2 or 3 year package from XM so I can lock in on the low rate. I want to think that since they hit the 1 million mark and will really grow now that they are commerical free that they do not need the commerical money to survive. If they stay $3 a month cheaper than Sirus for a while, they can really corner the market.

 

[Joshua_JO]

In regards of their being a sync problems with the NFL and listening to Sirius, all you will need to do is watch the game on any DVR/PVR and it will cause a delay and result in the video syncing with the audio. A guy at Sirius Backstage says he does this all the time for Fox News on tv/Sirius for audio. Why he does this I don't know but he claims it works.

 

[Mike_Mo]

I just dumped Sirius and picked up XM. The sound is great and they have much better play lists.

I got tired of the serious limitations of Sirius. The signal at home was terrible and needed an external antennae. The music formats were not great in fact I chose more often than not to listen to regular FM. And the worst was the big fat heavy plug and play unit that I couldn't fit anywhere in my vehicle.

All has been solved now with the nice and compact Delphi Xm unit. I easily found a spot to mount the unit in my vehicle and initial listening I have found great music on XM. Bye bye Sirius and hello Clear Channel.

 

[Chris]

Whoa, am I missing something? Does Clear Channel have a stake in XM?

 

[Jed M]

They have been an investor from the start, like GM and Directv. As an XM subscriber, its obvious that they are not interested in running a clear channel type play list.

 

[Dave Bennett]

Well commercial free XM music stations are here! However, I must say the more exciting thing for me is the new Lucy channel XM 54. It's amazing. It is playing a nice mix of 80's-90's alt hits and some deeper stuff thrown in the mix. This station is fantastic, I wish this had been on XM when I got it in November. I think I know what station my XM will be on at work tomorrow

 

[Chris]

Well, though, that helps seal why I'll stay with Sirius. Even though I'm a conservative at heart, I'm a libertarian first, and Clear Channel is one of those companies I won't give a dime to. Luckily, we don't have a clear channel broadcast station in our radio market, but I wont' patronize their causes, bah humbug.

(this has nothing directly to do with satellite radio, but a lot to do with everything from tours, promotions, and album releases)

 

[TheLongshot]

While I agree with you with CC, if you put the playlist of XM and Sirius next to each other, I'd think Sirius was programmed by CC. Some of the most unoriginal playlists that I've ever heard.

As for the changes, I'm still bummed that they got rid of Special X. The sendoff last night convinced me that they never should have gotten rid of it.

On the other hand, what I've heard of Lucy is pretty good.

Jason

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Based on what I hear on the decades
channels, Sirius Radio's programming is god-awful.

We really have tried to urge Sirius to take a
look at their playlists and to expand them. Our
complaints on SIRIUSBACKSTAGE.COM were answered
only for a short period of time, but the programming
has reverted back to the mess it once was.

Although I am very fond of the people that run
the Sirius network, their programming philosophy
is going to run them into the ground.

It truly hurts me to say this, but....

Anyone looking for diversity, enlarged playlists
and deep cuts should look at XM over Sirius --
especially since XM is now commercial-free and
$3 cheaper per month.

 

[SteveK]

Ron- I remember recently that Sirius was going to be significantly expanding (doubling?) its playlists. I had thought this was going to happen as of mid-January. Did the expansion of playlists not happen?

I'm only familiar with the programming on XM, as I've never heard Sirius, but I've always read that XM had much larger playlists than Sirius. From your latest comments, apparently that is still the case. I'm glad that XM's programming philosophy is so much different than at Sirius, and I can only hope that XM continues to provide the incredible variety of music and the deep playlists they currently provide.

Steve K.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Sirius continues to roll downhill in music
programming.

Here is a letter I received from a fellow Sirius
listener today after I asked her what she thought
of the new changes at Sirius...


We really tried to persuade Sirius to fix their
programming. Unfortunately, it's still extremely
stale and repetetive.

 

[John_Griff]

I also am digging the Lucy channel, I love it!! Am I the only one that still has the old Sony "Plug 'n Play" radio??

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Bigtime Sirius supporter here as well...and I'm even thinking about giving XM Radio a try now that they are commercial free.

I received all my Sirius Hardware free (Friends & Family deal) and never looked back (until now). I only have Sirius in my vehicle, via FM modulator. I have been happy with the quality, hardly ever a drop out, and I live in a somewhat hilly area in Washington State.

However, the programming (playlists) are really starting to annoy the heck outta me. Seems like I always here the same song...at least twice a day...and I don't even do that much driving on a daily basis (maybe an hour to an hour and a half, max) right now.

Though it will probably take a similair Friends & Family (free hardware) offer to get me to switch to XM at this point. The fact that I'm considering switching at all really blows my mind. I wanted to love Sirius (especially being the underdog!) but why love someone when they don't love you back.

With summer and increased "car-time" right around the corner, I can now honestly see myself going over to XM. Just wish this wasn't the case.