XM is pissing me off

[Eric'sFG2]

It's supposed to be commercial free right? That is the whole point of paying $10 a month, when I bought my Si it was all music. Now they have Ad's for Wendy's Diet pills, you name it, just like regular radio. Just like cable TV, people bought it at first saying OK I am paying not to have commercials, then they sneak them in, and now a lot of people think nothing of paying the cable bill now even though it's full of ad's.

Anyone else notice this? It's not on all the stations yet, not the rock stations but I have heard them on the top 20/hit stations and XM comedy.

[Cybergypsy]

I said the same thing....BULL

[DNieves]

It's not that bad but from what I read they need the cash (Sirius is kicking their butt badly), but if you pay $70/yr it's bearable (thanks Cybergypsy).

[Eric'sFG2]

Is sirus commercial free

never heard any of it, I just took XM for satalite radio since it came with the Si

I notice on the Scion Toyota lets you pick XM or Sirius

cool touch but not enough to make me get a Scion

[Cybergypsy]

Originally Posted by DNieves

It's not that bad but from what I read they need the cash (Sirius is kicking their butt badly), but if you pay $70/yr it's bearable (thanks Cybergypsy).

Your welcome, yep 77.00 a year is cheap, I hate sirus, I had both..... you can renew the same way for 70.00 a year..lol

[Civic4u]

My sirius kick ass! NO commercial Only upset my playboy channel is not working

[tennisfan16]

Originally Posted by Cybergypsy

Your welcome, yep 77.00 a year is cheap, I hate sirus, I had both..... you can renew the same way for 70.00 a year..lol

Where do i find my radio code off of my navi unit, i have been meaning to call xm and subsribe. I can't find my radio code though.

[Cookstar]

Originally Posted by Civic4u

My sirius kick ass! NO commercial Only upset my playboy channel is not working

Why would you want the Playboy Channel on the radio?

[Civic4u]

Originally Posted by Cookstar

Why would you want the Playboy Channel on the radio?

Very kinky, sexual stories Can't explain anymore detail, bad for under age youth online

[Cybergypsy]

Originally Posted by tennisfan16

Where do i find my radio code off of my navi unit, i have been meaning to call xm and subsribe. I can't find my radio code though.

channel 0

[tennisfan16]

Originally Posted by Cybergypsy

channel 0

thanks, i know it was a noob question but thanks.

[RaskyR1]

I have sirus in my shop and love it but my girl has XM and they seem to play better music...though the comecials do suck...I'd be pist if I were an XM customer. You may as well listen to HD radio if there is comercials!

[CaliGuy]

First: XM has the playboy channel???
Second: 70 a year? How did you hook that up
Third: I've only heard a few commercials and even then theyre just for xm..like check out station whatever or a short commercial for the station im listening to...but I pretty much stick with channel 82 and 84

[Jaranath]

Originally Posted by Eric'sFG2

It's supposed to be commercial free right? That is the whole point of paying $10 a month, when I bought my Si it was all music. Now they have Ad's for Wendy's Diet pills, you name it, just like regular radio. Just like cable TV, people bought it at first saying OK I am paying not to have commercials, then they sneak them in, and now a lot of people think nothing of paying the cable bill now even though it's full of ad's.

Anyone else notice this? It's not on all the stations yet, not the rock stations but I have heard them on the top 20/hit stations and XM comedy.

XM didn't put ads in your music. Clear Channel did.

XM is not, as of yet, "sneaking in" ads. They're running them on a few channels such as comedy and news for reasons I'm less clear on...presumably it costs a lot more money to get the material they're running. I'm told Sirius does the same for that content, but I'm not sure that's accurate.

What you are noticing are the Clear Channel music channels. Clear Channel, if you aren't already aware, is the media behemoth that owns well over 1,000 radio stations nationwide, with a heavy stake in advertising (especially billboards), concert and event organization, and some dabbling in other areas including TV. Clear Channel is heavily criticized for taking the "Wal-Mart approach" to radio, consolidating programming and cutting costs. The general perception of Clear Channel is that they run fewer songs with more ads, and generally hate the customer and suck the lifeblood from children. There's cause to doubt some of those charges, but it's probably true that they've played a major role in the death of "local radio."

Back in '98, Clear Channel made an investment in XM. Under the deal, they basically run four of XM's stations, apparently including the ones you've been listening to..."top 20/hit" is definitely Clear Channel's forte. XM decided some time ago to remove all advertising from its music channels. Clear Channel sued, claiming their investment gave them the right to run ads on their channels. The courts eventually found in their favor...thus, at least four XM music channels run advertising. XM stated it would retaliate by creating four NEW channels that mirror the format of the Clear Channel channels, but lack ads.

There's a lot of irony in this fight. The Clear Channel stations were more likely to be similar to local broadcast stations, also run by Clear Channel, so presumably they had fewer XM listeners to begin with. The incident doesn't portray Clear Channel favorably, which might further decrease their XM listenership. But conversely, XM is still struggling financially...to the best of my knowledge, they are still losing money. They're also now facing a big lawsuit from everyone's favorite organization, the RIAA, over recording-capable devices like the Inno, which XM is hoping will bring in a lot more subscribers. It may be that XM is going to be forced to expand advertising merely to survive...if they can, given that such a move will piss off customers. Of course, even if XM does succeed commercial free, that doesn't prevent them from getting greedy in the future and doing precisely what you accused them of.

[Tim]

Why would anyone ever want to record low-quality garbage sound off of XM?

[Jaranath]

Originally Posted by Tim

Why would anyone ever want to record low-quality garbage sound off of XM?

I'm skeptical the difference would be that large, or that the average user would notice. Remember, they're not targeting audiophiles. I like quality sound, though I'm not an audiophile and wouldn't want to be, seeing as much of that business is questionable. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that broadcast radio is capable of higher quality than satellite, and indeed that's quite noticeable on XM's spoken-word channels. Of course, as I recall they also deliberately throttle back the quality on those channels.

Regardless, it doesn't look like the purpose behind XM and Sirius' recording devices is to enable permanent music archiving and trading (which is what has the RIAA all in a lather.) The idea seems to be to allow a "Tivo" for radio. You can program it to catch your favorite radio show or game, and can use it to back up and relisten to something you didn't quite hear right, or a great song you just heard and want to hear again. I've wanted to have that capability for some time now. Or, you can just load it up with 40 hours of whatever so you can listen in those few places where you can't get the satellite signal. That latter use is pretty weak in my opinion, but it's what some of the early portable XM and Sirius units did--they had no internal antenna, so they had to be hooked up to one and could only store programming like an iPod.

[sonitex]

Originally Posted by Cybergypsy

Your welcome, yep 77.00 a year is cheap, I hate sirus, I had both..... you can renew the same way for 70.00 a year..lol

How'd you get to renew with XM for 70/yr?

[sf-si-02]

Originally Posted by Civic4u

My sirius kick ass! NO commercial Only upset my playboy channel is not working

You have to go online and activate it from their website, its free and badass

[tennisfan16]

Originally Posted by sonitex

How'd you get to renew with XM for 70/yr?

just call 1-800-321-7117 and tell them you got the flyer for for 50% off(77 a year) and it says they will waive the activation fee of 14.99.

[aodmisery]

i called and tried to cancel and they gave me 3 months free then when it expired again i called to cancel and gave me 3 more months free. all the commercials i hear are these 1800 commercials or something to call and buy some stuff never payed attention i always change the channel when they come on.