SIRIUSXM: Still Lazy After All These Years (1 Viewer)

[Desslar]

The more annoying feature of my car is that there's no easy way for the driver to scroll through stations that aren't preset. That can only be done with the knob that is the furthest away from the steering column. The buttons on the wheel only deal with presets.

Same here. So one ends up only listening to the preset stations because it is hazardous to try to reach over to the stereo to manually scroll through stations.

 

[jim_falconer]

I can’t wait to turn on Classic Rewind in my car today, and hear The Cars “Let’s Go” for the 8th millionth in the past week * (sarcasm off now) *

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I can’t wait to turn on Classic Rewind in my car today, and hear The Cars “Let’s Go” for the 8th millionth in the past week * (sarcasm off now) *

I feel the pain. Everything seems to still be on auto-run over there as far as music programming is concerned.

Head over to the 70s channel where daily mandatory listening includes, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, MARGARITAVILLE, DON'T FEAR THE REAPER, and THE PINA COLADA SONG. Every freakin' day!

Oh, and all the cute jingles are gone and they are saving money by having some nobody become the voice of the channel and doing all these unfunny, annoying promos.

The best thing that channel has going for is Casey Kasem on the weekends, but I can also listen to him 24/7 on iHeart radio.

 

[Malcolm R]

I don't listen to the same station everyday, so I guess I don't have the issues with repetitiveness that some do. Almost every day I seem to hear a song on one of the channels I either haven't heard in forever, had forgot about, or am hearing for the first time.

I do think they probably cater to the masses, though, many of whom like to hear the same familiar "comfort food" hits so they can sing along.

 

[Desslar]

I feel the pain. Everything seems to still be on auto-run over there as far as music programming is concerned.

Head over to the 70s channel where daily mandatory listening includes, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, MARGARITAVILLE, DON'T FEAR THE REAPER, and THE PINA COLADA SONG. Every freakin' day!

Oh, and all the cute jingles are gone and they are saving money by having some nobody become the voice of the channel and doing all these unfunny, annoying promos.

The best thing that channel has going for is Casey Kasem on the weekends, but I can also listen to him 24/7 on iHeart radio.

The Casey Kasem countdowns are a real pleasure to listen to. The regular programming not so much.

 

[TravisR]

I don't listen to the same station everyday, so I guess I don't have the issues with repetitiveness that some do. Almost every day I seem to hear a song on one of the channels I either haven't heard in forever, had forgot about, or am hearing for the first time.

Yeah, there's so many channels that if I don't like a song or I've heard it recently, I'll switch to another one.

 

[jim_falconer]

So “Lighter Touch” by Heart off their incredible album Dog And Butterfly popped up on Spotify today. And it made think just how stuck in neutral SirusXM is with what they play. This is a magnificent track, that will never see the light of day on Classic Rewind.

 

[TonyD]

Chiming in again to say that if you can use the phone app there are an about 10 or so app only stations that are called Deep Cuts music only.
They all seem to be auto play and are very random.
The Deep Tracks version plays a ton of rarely heard songs and long cuts of others that we have heard before.
The Classic Rewind Deep Cuts channel is also really good compared to the standard Classic Rw channel.

Earlier this year both my wife‘s and my subs expired so we cancelled before it auto Renewed

And as usual we receive a constant flow of offers for $5 a month + fees.

A couple weeks ago we got a $4 a month offer that included a free upgrade to “premium” which includes all the channels offered and access in the car.
Comes to about $5.20 a month.

I don’t need it but my wife likes to have it so we signed up for it.
I just use her login on my app if I want to listen on my phone or on the atv app

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I am still a subscriber. Probably will continue until Howard Stern retires. I suspect at that point, SiriusXM is going to lose a lot of subscribers who aren't there for the music.

Nothing has changed since I posted the article in this thread back in 2018. The service continues to run as if it were an FM radio station, limiting the scope of music it plays and repeating the same few hundred songs daily. It continues to feel as if nobody there cares about rotating out songs.

I do agree that if you listen to the extra channels on the app, you tend to get a better-curated selection of music depending on what channel you choose. Doesn't seem to affect the "Decades" channels as they always play the same few songs relentlessly. You do get the advantage of better sound quality as you are no longer restricted to the limited bandwidth and audio compression of satellite radio.

 

[Capt D McMars]

So “Lighter Touch” by Heart off their incredible album Dog And Butterfly popped up on Spotify today. And it made think just how stuck in neutral SirusXM is with what they play. This is a magnificent track, that will never see the light of day on Classic Rewind.

someone must have been awake, a real rarity. LOL!!!

 

[TravisR]

I am still a subscriber. Probably will continue until Howard Stern retires.

It's silly how much I hate to even think of that happening. I've been listening since I was 8 or 9 when he came to the Philadelphia market and while it won't be the same as new shows, I'm sure I'll keep Sirius for years just to hear reruns after he leaves.

 

[Jeffrey D]

The Billy Joel Channel is back, probably for the next 4 weeks or so (channel 79).

 

[budrichard]

I have have/had Sirius All Access.
The Met Opera station is now only available on cellular from Sirius.
Chews into my Digital Data Plan.
A petition to get the streaming reinstated went nowhere apparently.
I canceled.
I got a call inviting me to get a lower rate than I negotiate each year.
I said no Met, no subscription.
In the mail I got an offer at less than $7/month billed on a monthly basis.
I gave in.
Frankly the only thing I listen ti in my Vehicle is Met Opera Radio.
I have all the other channels for the various decades programmed but rarely listen.
Don’t’ know what else to do?
-Richard

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I have have/had Sirius All Access.
The Met Opera station is now only available on cellular from Sirius.
Chews into my Digital Data Plan.
A petition to get the streaming reinstated went nowhere apparently.
I canceled.
I got a call inviting me to get a lower rate than I negotiate each year.
I said no Met, no subscription.
In the mail I got an offer at less than $7/month billed on a monthly basis.
I gave in.
Frankly the only thing I listen ti in my Vehicle is Met Opera Radio.
I have all the other channels for the various decades programmed but rarely listen.
Don’t’ know what else to do?
-Richard

There have been quite a few channels over the years offloaded from car satellite receivers to the SiriusXM app.

And this has caused quite a bit of outrage across several radio forums I regularly follow.

I suppose with the SiriusXM app that extends to Carplay/Android Auto access and most people having unlimited cellular plans it's not an issue that effects everyone.

However, I can clearly see that anyone with a limited data plan is going to have issues.

I don't think there is much you can do outside of going with an unlimited cellular plan. There seems to be a growing trend with the service to retire less popular channels to their app in favor of introducing new ones to their satellite receivers.

 

[David_B_K]

I have have/had Sirius All Access.
The Met Opera station is now only available on cellular from Sirius.
Chews into my Digital Data Plan.
A petition to get the streaming reinstated went nowhere apparently.
I canceled.
I got a call inviting me to get a lower rate than I negotiate each year.
I said no Met, no subscription.
In the mail I got an offer at less than $7/month billed on a monthly basis.
I gave in.
Frankly the only thing I listen ti in my Vehicle is Met Opera Radio.
I have all the other channels for the various decades programmed but rarely listen.
Don’t’ know what else to do?
-Richard

On top of that, they have now added "Live From the met" to the regular Symphony Hall channel. They play an opera Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons. This irritates me as I mainly listen to Sirius while driving, and I don't particularly like to join an opera in media res.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Had the opportunity to text an alleged ex-SiriusXM employee, asking why there is so much music repetition on the service with their limited playlists.

This is the response I received...



It's a really simple answer. SiriusXM isn't programmed by people as much as it is by numbers. Take the 80's on 8, for instance (I use it as my example since it's the one that I spent much of my time tuned into). They have a library of over 25,700 songs that they CAN play in rotation, yet, they will typically only play a rotation of about 265 songs in a month. The playlist varies, but if a song gets a high "follow through" listening number by the data, IE...a person listens to more than 80% of the song prior to chancing the station, it goes into the daily rotation. If a song gets 65% follow through, it might get offset-weekly rotation (where it might play every day, but never in the same music programming block). If a song gets less than 50% follow through, it is immediately pulled for 7 days in the time slot that it had that reduced play time. Many songs that play on 80's on 8 are considered mainstream music, but the "fringe" music gets very scarce playback due to subpar performance. Now, this might not mean much seeing as how they don't have to appeal to advertisers, but when a new subscriber signs up and goes to 80's on 8, the COMPLETELY expect to hear She Blinded Me With Science, Somebody's Watching Me, Money For Nothing and a full compliment of 80's "hits" upon first listen. It's these NEW subscribers that often control what is played while, those of us with multi-year subscriptions are kind of tired of the same old loop...and we change the station. It's all about meeting the new subscriber's expectations versus maintaining current subscriber's desire to hear ANYTHING different.

Truth be told, when I worked there, the impetus to play REAL New Wave music on 80's on 8...like early Tears for Fears, lesser hits by REO Speedwagon, ELO, and hundreds of other mainstream artists with non-mainstream tunes wasn't even heard by management. Couple that with the fact that they lost almost 1.2 million subscribers since 2018 and you've got a recipe for consistently stale, droning music. SiriusXM cannot afford to lose subscribers en masse.

When they see a drop in older subscribers, it matters far, far less to them than meeting the expectation of new subscribers...period. We, the people who love the outer limits of the various genres, who also have more than a full year subscription aren't a priority. Basically, a long-time user tunes-in less and less whereas a new subscriber that hasn't been musically abused yet might just sit there on that same station until they get bored. Given the older 90 day guarantee that they used to offer, that first 90 days was critical to turning a profit. It's NOT a good business model, but I wasn't on that side of the business. I was a digital program director who just took the data and made the "approved" rotation schedule. Trust me when I tell you, I tried for YEARS to slip in a song that many wouldn't remember until they heard it again, but those playlists typically got shot down or edited prior to air. The month before I left that job, I was told that they were going to expand the library for a little more diverse program material. That was over 5 years ago...and I'm still hearing the same old, crusty music.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Not surprised about the 265 songs number.
I bet The Bridge channel has a similar number (they have recently started playing
“deep cuts” there, like the 80s on 8 sort of does). Still, a far too limited library for the channel (drives me bonkers that they always play Harry Chapin’s Cats In The Cradle, while regarding the much better Taxi as a deep cut).

 

[Bryan^H]

$3 a month for three years, cancel anytime

 

[Ronald Epstein]

$3 a month for three years, cancel anytime

Need to know what plan that is, otherwise it's not helpful, I'm afraid.

Is that the Platinum plan with Howard Stern? Just music?

How was that plan offered?

 

[Bryan^H]

Need to know what plan that is, otherwise it's not helpful, I'm afraid.

Is that the Platinum plan with Howard Stern? Just music?

How was that plan offered?

Not platinum—It was a “welcome back” offer for those that once had it apparently.
I think I got four e-mails promoting it.