The Problem With Sirius XM
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I was a strong supporter of Sirius merging with XM. I anticipated getting the good XM stations since I had Sirius and was bummed out that I didn’t get Major League Baseball as well as other things on XM programming. Now the merger is approved and what do they do? They use it as a way to milk more money out of subscribers. They sell a Best of XM package as an add on to your account. You don’t just get it included with your existing account as many subscribers expected.
Not only am I peeved that I have to pay for these stations but I am left to wonder why it costs extra to listen to my radio stations over the Internet in CD quality. They do offer a free option over the Internet, but the sound is terrible and the player doesn’t even display the current song playing. This doesn’t make sense when I can get totally free stations on the Internet. I pay for Sirius, why don’t they include Internet radio for that fee?
Radios are still very expensive if you want to upgrade, and now as part of the merger they are pushing people to get their Sirius XM radios directly connected to their stereos instead of using the FM radio to broadcast through an unused station. The FCC was pissed at them doing this for some reason.
Sirius XM just seems to be giving their customers more options, but it’s only at an additional cost. An additional cost when many people already think it’s kind of dumb to be paying $12 or more a month for radio that you really can only get in your car unless you pay hundreds of dollars for a mobile player. Maybe it’s time for me to let them go and I’ll listen to my iPod in the car instead.
3 Comments
Hieronymus Murphy
December 14th, 2008
at 2:15am
Let’s see if I’ve got this right: you pay to listen to Sirius XM *and* pay a premium for the special devices needed - and this is better than regular ol’-fashioned terrestrial radio how?
Mind you, I’m not defending terrestrial radio for one second - radio has sucked so much for so long, it now maintains a steady state of suckage without any effort whatsoever.
I haven’t listened to radio (except NPR occasionally) in more than 20 years, and that’s why iPods have been a God-send for me.
I can compile iPod song lists of artists I’d like to hear together, I can listen to a particular genre exclusively (if that’s what I’m in the mood for), and I can and have devised song lists for genres in particular decades.
And I can listen to all my music without interruption from a radio personality.
Why the h*ll should I listen to *any* form of radio?
oztech
December 14th, 2008
at 11:10am
I originally got Sirius for Christmas 2 years ago. I had a free trial for 6 months. I canceled the subscription and tried regular radio again. The commercials were annoying in comparison to the past 6 months I had without commercials. So I went back to Sirius. I find a lot of new music that I wouldn’t know to put on an iPod by listening to Sirius. That’s the one thing the iPod cannot do well. For what I’m paying though, I might not tolerate it much longer and just opt for podcasts and Internet radio.
RFC Radio online today!
February 28th, 2009
at 6:26am
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