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XM Satellite Radio Backlash
mrchubbs writes "Sponsors and subscribers to XM Radio are protesting the decision by XM management to suspend the Opie and Anthony show for comments made on an uncensored channel. Subscribers are canceling subscriptions — some estimate that between 20,000 and 40,000 have cancelled. Some are even smashing their radios in protest. Sponsors are pulling ads. Also, there is some evidence of XM not honoring cancellation requests, forcing multiple calls to finally get accounts canceled." Of course this dispute isn't a free-speech issue. "Free speech" refers to a prohibition on censorship by the government; XM is free to do as it wishes with the content it broadcasts, within the law.
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This happened to me... XM is definitely messing with people's accounts. I canceled my service about a year ago, but a few months after canceling they started charging my card again. I can't think of a worse way to treat a customer. If someone charges your card out of the blue just because they have your account info, they are committing credit card fraud.
What you're leaving out is while he was saying that Opie and Anthony were joking that they would hold her down and punch her in the face. I don't know about you, but that's pretty far over the line - even for an "uncensored" show.
Other things wrong with XM they need to boost their signal, illegally, with terrestrial transmiters which operate at greater power than is allowed by the FCC. They don't have the NFL, and lost Nascar. I'm looking pretty smart for buying Sirius stock early. (Although I must confess that was entirely based on their exclusive NFL deal). Not that Opie and Anthony don't suck, they do, they sucked on terrestrial radio, and they suck from space. And not because they're contraversial, no, they just suck. But when they're the only thing that XM has going and XM gets rid of them, that not so much shooting oneself in the foot as it is shooting oneself in the mouth.
The cost of making a one-hour drama episode has tripled in the last 15 years from about $1m in the early 1990s to $2.7m, according to some studio executives. Costs of thirty-minute comedies have also spiralled to $1.5m from around $700,000. Quality TV squeezes networks
Cable TV began as a community antenna service. There were adds from the beginning - but none that directly benefited the cable provider or subsidized the cost of original programming.
As another blog has posted, I have verified. XM is not canceling accounts when you call. Merely just putting a hold on them. My cancellation date when I called back was May 26th, when I asked for it immediately. May 25th is a shareholder's meeting. Coincidence?
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
They were banned from Country radio.
But The Dixie Chicks survived and found a new audience. Cecilia Peck - Shut Up & Sing
So what did they actually say? Here's the transscript I've been able to dig up. Charlie is some character called "homeless charlie".
I've never listened to Opie and Anthony, nor do I subscribe to sat radio, but I have to say it's a lot less offensive than I imagined from the little "raping Condi Rice, Laura Bush, and the Queen" summary I've read. It's really not any worse talk than you'd hear a few guys in a bar saying.
I guess I have to agree with the comment that the suspension was really more about trying to appease any government contacts that Sirius/XM has to grease the wheels on the (IMO really bad for the public) merger between the two.
AccountKiller
Yes, the public finds out they're *really* stupid after BUYING their albums! D'oh!!!
On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by Iraq.
However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war.
In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations.
You can't take the sky from me...
I'm not sure how taxpayer money is being waisted, XM and their customers are all private entities and one of the will end up paying for the court costs.
But a class action lawsuit goes straight to the point. I don't care who the vendor is, if they talk you into buying something, it should at minimum do what they advertise it to do. In this case, uncensored radio means exactly that, uncensored radio. You didn't by a receiver that you can't use on anything else and subscribe to a monthly service for less or partially censored radio, you did this for their uncensored radio. I wouldn't care about the service, up until now, it has been uncensored. But the receiver costs like $150 or more depending on the unit you bought and if you needed to pay someone to install it. XM should be refunding that for failing to deliver the goods.