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iPhones, FStream and the Death of Satellite Radio
Statesman writes "Only a little over a year ago, the
FCC approved the merger of XM and Sirius
satellite radio companies and the combined stock was trading at $4 a share. Despite being a monopoly — or perhaps because of it — the company is failing. They are losing subscribers, the stock is now trading around 22 cents a share (a 97% decline), and they have written off $4.8 billion dollars in stock value. So, what happened? The CEO is blaming pretty much everyone except himself and his business model. But is pay-for-bandwidth even a viable business plan anymore? With millions of iPhone and gPhone users out there, free streaming audio applications like FStream, and thousands of Internet radio stations to access, the question is: why would anyone want to pay for proprietary hardware and a limited selection of a few hundred stations all controlled by one company?"
Read on for the rest of Statesman's thoughts.
Statesman continues:
"It seems like the pay-for-broadcast business model is fundamentally flawed. First, satellite radio is a misnomer; if you are listening inside a big building, chances are you're really using WiFi radio, not satellite, which requires line-of-sight to the sky. In this mode, XM/Sirius offers less selection and higher cost than an iPhone and streaming audio client. Second, a monopoly is a monopoly. Sure, you can get dozens of ClearChannel stations in some markets, but after a while it does not matter whether they are country, top 40 or easy listening. They all have the same format of hypercharged 'personalities' and lots of ads. By contrast, the iPhone and streaming client can access thousands of stations from thousands of providers worldwide. Finally, you may say that an iPhone and service agreement are expensive compared to a satellite radio subscription, but if you already have the iPhone, the cost of adding a stream audio application is zero. And the iPhone is cheap compared to a cell phone plus an MP3 player plus a laptop plus internet access. Bottom line: a year after being granted monopoly status, Sirius is all but bankrupt and the satellite radio business model is dead. Time for the FCC to think seriously about making better use of this bandwidth."
"It seems like the pay-for-broadcast business model is fundamentally flawed. First, satellite radio is a misnomer; if you are listening inside a big building, chances are you're really using WiFi radio, not satellite, which requires line-of-sight to the sky. In this mode, XM/Sirius offers less selection and higher cost than an iPhone and streaming audio client. Second, a monopoly is a monopoly. Sure, you can get dozens of ClearChannel stations in some markets, but after a while it does not matter whether they are country, top 40 or easy listening. They all have the same format of hypercharged 'personalities' and lots of ads. By contrast, the iPhone and streaming client can access thousands of stations from thousands of providers worldwide. Finally, you may say that an iPhone and service agreement are expensive compared to a satellite radio subscription, but if you already have the iPhone, the cost of adding a stream audio application is zero. And the iPhone is cheap compared to a cell phone plus an MP3 player plus a laptop plus internet access. Bottom line: a year after being granted monopoly status, Sirius is all but bankrupt and the satellite radio business model is dead. Time for the FCC to think seriously about making better use of this bandwidth."
That "lots of ads" thing? Nope, no ads. That's one benefit of paying for the service. The jocks do push things they think are of general interest, like football scores and who is playing who and where, so it isn't entirely noise-free, but it is close.
Another benefit of radio over the iPod is that you're connected to the real world; if something happens, you hear about it. There are situations where that might be important, and there are situations where it certainly is at least desirable.
Satellite radio is, on some channels, uncensored. That's something I treasure. Important for listening? No, not really. But it is very nice to hear people speaking and performing without the government muzzling them. Particularly in the case of rock, where profanity keeps a very large number of tunes from ever getting on standard radio (if they ever deviated from their playlists, as if that'll ever happen.)
There are very large areas of the country where there is no service you can use to receive radio. You can't use an iPhone within hundreds of miles of where I live (they locked it to AT&T, and AT&T isn't very interested in Montana); and road trips are eight, ten, even twelve hours, during which we are almost pitifully grateful to have XM/Sirius. There's no digital service you can use to connect to the Internet barring a satellite connection on the roof of your vehicle. Which, of course, is what the XM/Sirius widget is in the first place. It just connects to them instead of the Internet, that's all.
We do have one (yes, that's *1*) FM station we can hear, as long as we're within 30 miles of town or so. We get the farm report, some country, some top 40, "auctions" of local goods and services, and the one thing I am grateful for, the lost pets report. Someone found my cat once. One of the charity things I was involved with brought PBS radio here; I contributed a few grand, they put up a translator, and if you're within, oh, five miles of it in the right direction, you can listen to PBS via FM. Having put money into it, you'd think I'd listen, but I'm somewhat conservative on many issues and frankly, they drive me a little nuts.
At night, we can hear quite a bit of the broadcast AM band, but that's really deteriorated into far left and far right and wackos, with a sprinkling of country (which you may enjoy, but no one in my family does.)
Now, I certainly recognize that if they can't make a viable business out of satellite radio, it is going to go away, but when urban dwellers generalize as if the entire country has access to the amenities they do, well, I'm afraid that's not the entire picture. It'll be a real loss for us. We have satellite radios in all our vehicles in the family, at work, and in my home. The day they go dead will be a day of mourning around here.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"why would anyone want to pay for proprietary hardware and a limited selection of a few hundred stations all controlled by one company?"
As opposed to the freedom I enjoy of everything coming down one or more pipes controlled by either a duopoly or a monopoly.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Where I live, we don't even get radio station reception at my house, so this is a good way to get lots of music, and national radio broadcasts, in my car, whenever I want. Or I can change the stations depending who's in the car with me. Somehow, this seems a lot less of a hassle than getting an iPhone just to hear some tunes.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Some people like certain media personalities and are willing to pay a premium to subscribe to their shows.
BTW, this is also why sites like Forbes, NYT, and WSJ get paid subscribers while CNN and MSNBC basically give away everything for free. You said it yourself. Clearchannel's lock on the airwaves is something that some people are fed up with, and those people are looking to XM as a means of getting other types of content.
But I don't even own a tv or a radio, so I'm just a bit better than you.
Why was this suprising? Remember the days when cable didn't have any commercials? Now it's just like regular public TV except there is more "Adult" content.
This model was doomed for failure the moment it left earth.
Instead of posting on slashdot,, I should have been shorting the stock.
SeeqPod is pretty cool for the iphone/ipod.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
WiFi radio? Does Statesman mean internet radio?
Sirius has terrestrial repeaters of their signal in large cities, so even in a building in Denver, for example, a Sirius receiver would get full signal strength from their transmitter on the ground. The transition from satellite to terrestrial is seamless, it is the same signal.
My main problem with Sirius is that even on the "commercial free" channels, the DJ would ... advertise for stuff going on related to Sirius, on other channels. Also, they would repeat songs at least once per day on more than a few channels, which got aggravating if you listened to it all day long.
I recently got rid of my Sirius radios and went with Slacker, getting their G2 portable as well. Big advantages: they will stream internet radio to a Linux computer, something that Sirius will not do. Also, Slacker's selection is much better, and the "Ban" and "Next" buttons are something that you couldn't even dream of with satellite radio. The G2 will download songs over wifi to the 4 or 8 GiB of storage, and it attempts to create an internet radio experience on the go, and it really does succeed.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
The problem with subscription-based radio is that there are so many easy alternatives that provide the user with much more control over their listening environment. I could potentially see people subscribing who live on the road, but for your average driver the plethora of options presented by standard radio, in-dash units that play digital audio files, regular CDs, iPods, and other external digital music players makes the subscription model much less compelling.
I've only known one person who had a satellite radio subscription, and that was relatively short-lived. It just doesn't seem to make much sense to most people.
I remember a few weeks ago when I got the new channel update: I was freaked out. Half of my presets were gone. Not just renamed, but GONE. Yeah, I was pretty upset, and my first reaction was that I was probably going to cancel as soon as Howard Stern's contract is up (I'm a big enough fan that I consider that I'm paying my monthly fee just for his two channels, every other channel I happen to get is just a bonus).
But it didn't take me too long to figure out that my old channels has just been both renamed and renumbered, and my unit wasn't smart enough to track a change in both. Sirius' "Big 80s" was replaced with "80s on 8." Sirius "Left of Center" was replaced with "Sirius-XM U." "Buzzsaw" was replaced with "Boneyard." In short, nothing whatsoever was actually LOST, I just had to do some digging.
Sirius is guilty of failure to communicate the nature of the changes they made - but as near as I can tell they haven't dropped any content. At least, no content that I listen to... but like I said, if they drop EVERY other channel in their entire lineup and then jack up the price, I'll still pay to listen to Howard anywhere I go (a pure internet feed wouldn't cut it during my commute).
Is this serious? An iPhone able to replace satellite radio? Lets start with battery life, as in, there is none. Using WiFi to stream music on the iPhone will kill the battery in less than an hour or so depending on conditions. To solve that, I guess I could plug the thing in.
Now, let's use WiFi in my moving car. HAHAHA yeah, that's a total joke. So we'll use T-Mobiles network for $20 a month... umm, maybe not. Let's use AT&T's network. Streaming data plan? $60 a month. Better hope you're in one of the urban areas that support the high speed data! ORRRRRRR... you could buy a $50 Satellite receiver, pay $12 a month (or $6 if you know someone nice) and do away with a $60/mo data plan AND have access to the signal anywhere in the US.
Seriously... I live in a big urban area, where the idea of this would work. But the implementation would be marginally feasible at best. The battery life issue is huge. The cost is huge (but one could argue that one would already have those, making the cost a non-factor... but how many people have an iPhone + an AT&T data plan AND have Satellite radio? Not many I'll wager.). The available coverage area is absolutely tiny, microscopic really compared to satellite radio.
No... there's nothing about this idea that is even marginally viable on even a small scale.
The business model of XM/Sirius may be flawed, but iPhones and FStream are not going to be a factor in any way, shape or form, nor is WiFi and Streaming radio. Satellite radio is good for so many things that WiFi and Streaming radio can't and won't be touching anytime in the near future (remote listening, professional music selection/composition/presentation, uncensored programming, big name talk show people (bleh personally), professional sports, etc...). Streaming audio can't compete at the same level anytime soon, if for no other reason than it's not organized enough.
I've got XM weather in my airplane (via a Garmin GPSmap 496). So do lots and lots of other people. There's no terrestrial replacement for that. I won't fly without it any more, as it allows me to keep an eye on the weather myself while I'm in the air.
I also have had XM radio in my car since December 2001, and love it: you don't have to go hunting around for decent programming every time you drive out of a station's coverage area on a road trip.
XM is worth every penny of the subscription fee, to me.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
...a monopoly is a monopoly.
This is a tired and wrong argument. From wikipedia: "Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods." There are PLENTY of viable substitute goods (iPods, terrestrial radio, etc), plenty of economic competition, and Sirius XM lacks the pricing power of a monopoly. The mere fact that they use a satellite to transmit their signal directly to customers does not make them a monopoly by itself. If satellite were the only way to reach all or even am economically significant fraction of customers then it would be a credible argument.
Our federal government took over a year (far too long btw) to review the case and came to the correct conclusion that there is no monopolistic power here. Customers are free to use any of the numerous alternatives and there is ample customer churn for Sirius XM to back this fact up. There is no compelling argument to be made against the merger and it is reasonably likely Sirius XM will go bankrupt no matter what happens thanks to the downturn in the auto industry.
Sirius XM may go out of business. Their revenue model has always been questionable and they have spent money somewhat recklessly. Their debt load is what ultimately might kill them. They have a decent product but that by itself is never enough. They are not and never have been a monopoly. There simply are too many other options.
Stern is the reason why Sirius/XM are still alive. He brought along millions of subscribers when he left terrestrial radio, and they are sticking with him. However he retires in two years, and I imagine Sirius/XM will have some very hard times retaining customers when that happens. baba booey baba booey
XM/Sirius' stock is trading in the trash because they have over $1 billion in debt that needs to be refinanced next year and there are substantial fears that they won't be able to obtain such financing in the current market. If they are unable to obtain the financing they need, then the stock will be worthless. It's a pretty easy explanation.
The summary indicates that the submitter has no idea about satellite radio. I don't have one, nor have I ever had one, but even I can see through the faults in his explanation. Listening in a building does invoke the terrestrial rebroadcast, yes, but only a tiny fraction of satellite radios are portable. The overwhelming number of units are permanently installed in cars.
"Proprietary hardware?" Seriously? Satellite radio gear is manufactured by Alpine, Kenwood, Sony, Pioneer, and most of the smaller car audio names and is available as OEM equipment from nearly every car manufacturer. The iPhone is, near as I can tell, available from one vendor. If subby is perhaps using the words "proprietary hardware" to refer to the encrypted stream that is beamed from XM/Sirius, I might point out that the iPhone suffers from similar problems; please tell me how to use an iPhone with Verizon, or for that matter, how I keep Apple from remotely disabling FStream if they decide to do so.
What does XM/Sirius have to offer? For one, clean integration in your car. Car interface for an iPhone involves either a crappy little FM transmitter that will inevitably result in crackly, washed out audio on any channel or hardware-specific add-ons that work with some models of stereo but not others. If you're talking about an OEM XM/Sirius-capable radio in a recent model car, getting satellite radio is as trivial as calling a phone number. If you're talking about a car that lacks XM/Sirius hardware, then we're talking about installing new gear, which is essentially the same level of cost outlay and difficulty as adding iPhone playback. There are a few cars/aftermarket car stereos that have aux-in jacks, but those are pretty unusual. I would imagine that the ease of use in finding a radio station is probably lower on, you know, a radio than on some device that needs to be plugged into my car and have special software started up before I can browse for my preferred station.
I won't even get into the comparison between the $30 data plan on an iPhone (in addition to the standard voice plan) and the $6.99 a la carte pricing on XM/Sirius (for those who aren't interested in many of the stations).
Simply put, XM/Sirius isn't a "pay for bandwidth" service any more than Cable TV is. By the article's logic, the fact that I could go hook up my computer to my TV and use YouTube and Hulu and Netflix instant play means that the cable company is trying to sell me nothing more than bandwidth (over which similar shows tend to flow). It couldn't be further from the truth. XM/Sirius made some fundamentally, seriously bad business mistakes, starting with the fact that they didn't pool their resources and launch one company in the beginning. Launching (ultimately) redundant satellites, installing (ultimately) redundant terrestrial rebroadcasting towers, bidding against each other for radio "talent," etc. didn't come cheap, and much of it could have been avoided if one company launched in the beginning. On top of that, they forced potential subscribers to sit on the sideline until they figured out who was going to "win." Now, add in the fact that a huge amount of their debt is coming due at possibly one of the worst times to try to deal with it, and you've got a recipe for disaster.
But seriously, don't try to tell me that there's no good reason to use a $7/month radio service when a $30/month iPhone is just as good if you don't even grasp why someone might choose one over the other.
I subscribe to SiriusXM as well as riding the 3G network, and if it's radio you want... hate to tell you guys, but you're going to pay a metric assload less for satellite radio versus 3G internet access.
My XM subscription costs $130 USD per year.
My 3G access (unlimited data with unlimited tethering) is $85 USD per MONTH, which is only the data plan portion of my phone bill.
My opinion on why SiriusXM is tanking? They looked at all their combined radio stations, separated the wheat from the chaff, and gave us the goddamn chaff. The one channel I listen to the most (XM82 The System) was nixed in favor of something called Area, which in comparison, sucks. Even my wife who is not a die-hard electronica fan said that the quality went downhill. They screwed around with Chill, nixed Chrome, and I am quite certain that several other stations have been screwed around with much to the dismay of SirXM's subscribers.
They need to realize that most of us subscribe for literally a handful of stations, and if you screw with them, we get pissed.
"Who modded this informative? Whoever it is must've been smokin' some of that martian pot!"
It's not commercial-free anymore. Every few hours you get a short little verbal ad snippet. It's not too bad; still far superior to 'real' radio.
I know it's incredibly in vogue these days to blame everything on selfish people who make more money than you, especially the evil CEOs, but sometimes companies fail and it's not the CEO's fault. The best covered wagon CEO on earth couldn't figure out a way to beat the Model T.
Satellite radio is caught between a rock and a hard place. The RIAA wants their cut of royalties for the music XM / Sirius plays, and wants XM to police things so people don't rip music off their streams (which never happens in practice anyway because the stream quality's not good enough to incite enough people to want to do that). That costs a lot of money. XM / Sirius don't make a lot of revenue from ads, so they have to make it from subscribers. Logic dictates that one way to increase the subscriber base is to offer discounts -- but that presents them with cash flow problems while maintaining (or increasing) maintenance costs on that larger subscriber base.
Some of the subscriber attrition can be attributed to folks with multiple radios shutting one of them down to help save money in an economic downturn. I have two older radios -- one in the car, and an XM PCR in the house. Since I can get the XM stream via PC anyway, I recently shut down the PCR.
The ONLY thing keeping them afloat right now are deals with high-profile comedians and pro sports. Period. And they have to pay those folks boatloads of money to play at all. As wireless Internet becomes more ubiquitous and more and more of the premium content is available via Internet (Sunday Night Football via NFL.com is a perfect example), sat radio will finally be killed off.
It was a great idea in the pre-wireless days, but satellite radio is going the way of Iridium Phones.
Having to merge with other failing British auto manufacturers, then outright nationalized by the British government, then spat out and bought up by Ford, then sloughed off to an Indian car company hardly seems like a "successful business model".
I have an account with Sirius and don't mind paying for ad free music. I also appreciate the ability to tune in to my same favorite stations wherever I am in the US (I travel a lot for work). However, that's not really what Sirius XM has become. Because of the following reasons, I will be cancelling my subscriptions (I have two) once the year long contract runs out...
First of all, many of the channels are not ad free anymore. If it's not a real ad from another company, it's Sirius advertising their own services. Sorry, an ad is an ad. I won't pay for a service that is suppose to be ad free but isn't.
Second, in the merger of Sirius and XM, they did away with 5 of the 7 channels I routinely listen to. They also did so with no warning. Good grief, Charlie Brown, at least Sirius XM could have come up with some notice about the changes coming (ever heard of email?). Better, they could have conducted a survey of their customers as to what channels were the favorites and dumped the least favorite channels first. Not sure if my channels would have made the cut but at least it would not have been arbitrary (or based on some out-of-touch business manager's decision).
Third, their customer service has always sucked, and their web site has always been less than friendly. At least in my opinion. Maybe it's a monopoly thing. Not a deal killer but definitely a strike against them.
Fourth, with the XM merger, now they want to charge even more money to access all of their stations (specifically, they have a list of "The Best of XM", which includes Oprah, various sports related channels, and some public radio). It's not like they're not already charging an arm and a leg, so to speak.
Lastly, their REAL competition is access to the internet from any location (car, airport, jogging track, home) by any hardware. And with better reception (mostly, anyway). In fact, I would expect broadcast radio to be following satellite radio in short order for the same reason (ubiquitous internet access coupled with DRM free music and the proliferation of podcasts).
So, as a business model, I don't see them remaining viable past the end of 2010. It may be a self fulfilling prophesy but I will not be renewing my subscriptions for the above reasons/rants/predictions.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I did a coat to coast roadtrip last year and Sirius in a rental car was basically the only thing there was to listen to. Sad if that goes away.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
I'm thinking about dumping it next year. Now that the merger is over, the Sirius "jocks" WON'T SHUT UP! The main reason I went with XM radio 5 years ago was NO TALKING, NO COMMERCIALS. The decades channels and some of the rock channels have "DJ's" which have to talk over the music, yack yack yack. If I wanted that, I could listen to FM for free. Fix that, I'll keep it, don't, and I'm outta here. Back to FM, CD's & MP3's
I've had a Sirius subscription for 8 years using the same hardware all of that time and it still works the same today as it did when it was new --come talk to me about the longevity of your iPhone in 8 years. I hate commercials and for the most part, I hate DJs too. I just want music, the same music choices, where ever I go in North America and so do all of the other subscribers of the service. I doubt Sirius is in danger.
This article is garbage anyway because the author is really just an Apple fanboy preaching from the normal Apple fanboy pulpit about the superiority of the iPhone experience.
Just the same, I'll keep my Nokia E71 because it is a real phone that doesn't require being charged every 6 hours, and I'll keep my Satellite radio because the user experience for music is far, far superior to that of the iPhone.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Sirius's Karmazin ran over the dogmazin.
"You could say the same thing about a Jaguar" describes the situation much better than the OP realized.
Stay tuned to Sirius-XM for Bollywood sound tracks and sitar music.
I have never understood why anyone would pay for satellite radio programming.
Why? Because it's better. (Or was until the merger.) Better music programming and no commercials.
As far as playing MP3, CD, etc -- that takes planning and effort. With XM all I have to do is flip on the radio and there is (was) music I want to listen to.
As a Sirius subscriber, I'm still left shaking my head regarding the channels they nixed as opposed to the ones they kept. Rather than consolodating the ones that were basically duplicitive of each other, they killed the unique ones. This was a boneheaded move.
They did drop their most unique and niche content - the stuff that customers can't get on terrestrial radio. For example, they still have several channels of "rap and hip-hop", while killing the one disco/R&B channel. My wife was really pissed about losing her disco station, which is one of the big reasons for getting the service in the first place. So, it's back to the CDs for her. She may keep the service for Stern, but isn't sure yet.
The key to making the service viable is to carry a larger diversity of "niche" channels, not a bunch of "mainstream" ones that mainly compete against terrestrial radio or even each other.
The entire business model needs to be rethought. Right now, it's based on lock-in of subscribers who obtain expensive radios and would lose their entire acquisition investment if they drop the subscription. That risk deters potential customers from even considering the service at all.
A few non-subscription channels, even if they are somewhat bland "mainstream commercial" content, removes that disincentive. Those who want the unique content will subscribe, those who don't won't, but at least get some revenue from advertisers on the "free" channels. The more listeners, the higher the advertising revenues.
Pay for commercial-free and unique content with the assurance that the equipment will still have some limited functionality minus the subscription would work much better.
One other opportunity that Sirius could persue is to act as a "content originator" for a network of terrestrial broadcasters, especially those adding HD Radio. Offering them the content at a lower cost than they would incur by hiring DJs and sharing ad revenue could work as an additional income stream.
Attack the market in multiple directions at once rather than just being a one-trick-pony is the real key to success.
Is there any service that doesn't trump sat radio in a single aspect? Probably not. But I'm with the others here who see value to the service. The footprint of sat radio is in a league of it's own, and while it has it's own reception issues - especially in the hilly northeast US - it's not as if there aren't signal issues with any other wireless service. Satellite radio as we know it may be doomed. Sirius/XM has a business model that defies explanation, and WorldSpace has it's own troubles. That doesn't mean that a digital broadcast service with a continental footprint doesn't have a place in our modern media mix, just that the Sirius/XM radio model probably isn't it. fwiw, I've been an XM subscriber since around 2000 & I have no immediate plans to cancel... even though I probably spend more time listening online when I have access to a broadband connection. I'm hopeful that whatever private equity group picks up Sirius/XM (& maybe worldspace) assets & infrastructure at the inevitable bankruptcy firesale can come up with a practical business model and a way to woo back the installed hardware base - much of which is probably idle & unsubscribed.
If Sirius goes under I am going to be one seriously sad panda. Radio in my part of the country is fucking dire.
I find it hard to believe people don't think it's worth $13/mo, honestly.
+++ATH0
I canceled my XM subscription on Nov 24th. I had been paying for 2 radios on a family plan. At first I listened to XM a lot, then over time I listened less and less. I listen to my mp3 collection at home, and local talk radio when I'm in my car.
Toward the end, what really started bugging me, was hearing songs repeated 2 or 3 times in a 4 or 5 hour period. This was on a channel that was supposedly pulling the play list from the last 3 decades. I imagine that, even restricted to a particular genre, 30 years produced more than 4 hours of play worthy songs.
So, in accordance with the service agreement they have online, I canceled my family plan via email. I got an automated email informing me that 1) they got the email and 2) how great XM is and thanks for being a customer.
I waited a few days and checked my account online and didn't see any indication that the status of my account had changed. Then I got another email saying that if I really wanted to cancel I'd have to call customer support. I guess the service agreement page on their website is meaningless since they don't abide by it.
So, I called customer service, and the nice lady who answered asked me for some basic information, got my account information pulled up, and then asked how she could help me. I said, I want to cancel my subscription.
That's when the hard core retention pitch started. Paraphrased:
Why are you cancelling?
I don't listen to it anymore.
What if we give you 3 months of free service?
No thank you, please just cancel the account.
Are you sure you don't want an extra 3 months to think about it?
No, thanks. Please stop with the sales pitch I just want to cancel my subscription.
Now here is where it got interesting:
Do you have a car kit? (I think: Wha?)
Just cancel my account.
Can you give your radios to someone else? (Me to myself again: Wha? -the other neuron kicks in- They must be getting desperate.)
Just cancel my account.
She finally gave up and told me the account was closed and the date my radios would stop working.
If I had an interest in listening to sports, or shock jocks, or more than a handful of music genres, I might have kept XM. But even with a radio sitting within reach from where I type this, I have hardly turned the thing on over the last few months, and I spend a lot of my time sitting right here. Sirius XM has a lot of competition, and in my experience it is just not compelling enough to be part of my entertainment budget.
Frank
Hi, Newman, and welcome so Slashdot.
I'm an XM subscriber. I have been one for many years. With the recent XM/Sirius channel consolidation, the selection of music that I like has been drastically reduced. I expect that I'll be canceling my subscription within the next month. I couldn't care less about whether the subscriber base is growing or shrinking, the stock price, what XM/Sirius wrote off and when, or anything else as long as I can get the programming that I want at a reasonable price. Now that the programming that I like has gone away, there's no compelling reason for me to keep paying for the service. My opinion on this matter has nothing to do with the article at the top of the page. I had already reached my decision all by myself before I read this article, and I've seen several other people here making similar complaints. I wouldn't mind the merger at all if my favorite programming was still available, and I'd really like the merger if more new stuff was added to the programming that I like. However, as another commenter here wrote: "They looked at all their combined radio stations, separated the wheat from the chaff, and gave us the goddamn chaff."
if this article is any indication of the type of reporting this site does, I will not be back to comment again anyways. This is just another example of the crap reporting we are used to in this day and age. No research, no facts, just throw out some stuff and make an article you think will sell.
This site doesn't really provide any reporting; it mainly links to articles published elsewhere and lets people comment on them. It doesn't sell articles.
Anyway, if you have any connection with the folks who make programming decisions at XM/Sirius, please pass along some of the comments here. Maybe folks like me who feel cheated by the recent channel lineup change are in a minority and XM/Sirius won't miss our subscription revenue, but if we're not a minority, then XM/Sirius may have a really blue Christmas this year.
The only place XM/Sirius is even remotely worthwhile is where I don't have some form of internet access, and with 3G getting more prevalant, that's going away. I just wish more portable players, like the sansa e280 (rockboxxed, baby!) had 802.11 capability, without restrictions on where you go to get your streams. That would be really nice at the gym. Yeah, phones can do it, but I really prefer having a cheap device that is really good at that one thing that I don't worry about breaking.
At home I use my roku soundbridge, which provides a great streaming interface. On the road, I use streamtuner to 'dial in' my internet radio stations from shoutcast. Audacious, I just discovered while trying ubuntu as a good xmms replacement.