major channel lineup changes August 13th,2015

[Asket]

Well, let's see.... Scott told you exactly what was going to happen at 8:35AM PDT this morning. You responded to that at 9:04AM PDT. Now, in the evening, you think something has changed?

Sirius XM prpoject FUBAR is just that. None of the new channrls are worth scat. None of the channels recommended as replacement listening for ESCAPE even remotely qualify. The sound quality is notably worse, very mushy. Basically all the music channels except SPA, Sinatra and 1940s can easily be combined into one channel with the new name "Vomitus" Why is Caliente on 69 with Jazz Standards? I thought they wanted to make it easier to find what you want. Also lot of bandwith wasted on sports and traffic. Also several with programming to come later notifications. I can't see any further reason to consider them a reasonable programming source!

 

[Bobby]

One man's Vomitus is another man's Single Malt...

 

[fayrich]

That "Love" channel isn't even close to Escape. Just cancelled a few minutes ago. Good Riddance!! Now have to install my new internet radio in the bedroom. Have already installed several "beautiful music" or "easy listening" stations in the presets. Playing in the background now.

 

[Tampa8]

That "Love" channel isn't even close to Escape. Just cancelled a few minutes ago. Good Riddance!! Now have to install my new internet radio in the bedroom. Have already installed several "beautiful music" or "easy listening" stations in the presets. Playing in the background now.

Honestly you have been wasting your money no matter what channels Siriusxm has or does not have if internet radio is enough for what you want. I would never pay for SiriusXm just for some music in the house, there are a gadzillion free ways to do that.

 

[Asket]

One man's Vomitus is another man's Single Malt...

Well of course, that is why that new mega channel should be considered. You will be welcomed. Of course the move would free up some bandwidth.
Enjoy that errrrr.... "Malt"

 

[Asket]

Honestly you have been wasting your money no matter what channels Siriusxm has or does not have if internet radio is enough for what you want. I would never pay for SiriusXm just for some music in the house, there are a gadzillion free ways to do that.

Well of course you are so right especially with the recent degrading of sound quality to the extent that the spoken voice does not even sound good. All I have to do is turn on that 35 year old tube set to 88.1 and listen to a real Jazz station. KKJZ

 

[Tampa8]

I listen to comedy channels often, windows open going down the highway. Ditto Baseball and News and Talk. The only "speech" channels that I have come across that are hard to understand and do sound like there isn't enough bandwidth are the traffic channels. You don't like SiriusXM I get it. You don't like the channel placements, don't like certain channels so feel no one should like them.
Somehow with all those problems you find, they have approx 28 Million Subscribers and have had sustained growth not loss. As a comparison DISH has 14 Million, Direct tv +Uverse combined have approx 26 Million. That's with a terrible ongoing economy and other traditional paid subscriptions losing or barely maintaining subscribers.
I have always thought for someone who just wants music and nothing more why pay the subscription. Obviously they know that with the amount of entertainment, news, sports, music etc.

 

[dfergie]

I listen to the comedy channels & the 70's / 80's / Classic Vinyl / Boneyard .. can't fined them on FM here...

 

[Asket]

I listen to the comedy channels & the 70's / 80's / Classic Vinyl / Boneyard .. can't fined them on FM here...

Of importance that you do. I take it you enyoy them significantly. But one morning you wake up and find that the vomitus channel has replaced them. I think you would be not very happy about that especially if you are in a circumstance where you have no alternative. That is

I listen to comedy channels often, windows open going down the highway. Ditto Baseball and News and Talk. The only "speech" channels that I have come across that are hard to understand and do sound like there isn't enough bandwidth are the traffic channels. You don't like SiriusXM I get it. You don't like the channel placements, don't like certain channels so feel no one should like them.
Somehow with all those problems you find, they have approx 28 Million Subscribers and have had sustained growth not loss. As a comparison DISH has 14 Million, Direct tv +Uverse combined have approx 26 Million. That's with a terrible ongoing economy and other traditional paid subscriptions losing or barely maintaining subscribers.
I have always thought for someone who just wants music and nothing more why pay the subscription. Obviously they know that with the amount of entertainment, news, sports, music etc.

what commonly happens now on SXM. They care not at all about their customers. This just happenned to listeners of Escape, Sunny before that and how many others. Tampa says I do not like SXM and he is right, there is less to like every passing day. Fortunately I have alternatives.

 

[EarDemon]

As time passes I find more and more to like about Sirius XM. On Monday, the practically all day tribute to the late great Buddy Baker on NASCAR Radio was one of the best things I've heard in a long time. I was glad that I had the privilege to be a Sirius XM subscriber.

Sirius XM is a business and needs to do what what they can to attract the most amount of subscribers. Having a bunch of niche channels sounds great and all until you find out that almost nobody is listening and then you can find better uses for that bandwidth that appeals to more subscribers. I've been a subscriber of both services since almost the very beginning and have seen dozens of channels dropped over the years. If one is in a rental car, borrowing a friends/relatives ride, or has a a free trial of satellite radio and it takes the person 10 minutes to scroll through the channels to find a song they recognize how likely are they to become a paying subscriber?

Years ago, pre-merger, one of my favorite channels and reasons for subscribing all those years ago, Liquid Metal was removed from the satellites and went to canned online only. I was mad that they removed it, but understood that black metal is a niche subgenre of rock that doesn't appeal to the masses. I was happy when they brought the channel back, but it was dumbed down to include commercially successful bands. Liquid Metal became a great mix of all things metal and probably has more listenership then it ever has, and they are able to justify their existence on the Sirius XM spectrum.

One thing I really disagree with is the single artist payola channels. Elvis Radio I can understand due to the partnership with Graceland, but there is no reason for Pearl Jam, Grateful Dead, Springsteen and whoever else to have their own dedicated channels. Selfishly, I would rather see those channels be replaced with some of the online only channels I currently listen to like Rock Bar, Red, White & Booze and Rock & Roll HOF.

There are plenty of reasons why I continue to subscribe to satellite radio, while I mostly listen to music and are locked on to either Octane, LM or Prime Country, the sports talk is a great second along with the uncut comedy channels and Opie Radio. If you like one specific niche format of music and don't like sports, satellite radio is not really for you.

 

[Asket]

Well it has not boiled over into here yet but there appear to be problems with the Love Songs station. Seems that the info recieved that there was an ongoing plan to transfer programing to that channel from the escape library is taking place causing another upset to the listeners of love songs. Now it appears love songs peple are leaving and escape people won't take the bait. So they have created another channel that no one wants?
Really a shame because Velvet would have been a great name for a second BEZ station. I understand "love songs" is to be renamed. It would be nice to have TWO BEZ stations. Oh well there still is DMX with beautiful instrumentals. Need a big dish to do that one right but then I think dish network has those channels.

 

[Asket]

Update: Apparently the new name for #17 love songs is"Escape Love".

 

[Bobby]

Sounds like the Divorce Channel...

 

[EarDemon]

Well it has not boiled over into here yet but there appear to be problems with the Love Songs station. Seems that the info recieved that there was an ongoing plan to transfer programing to that channel from the escape library is taking place causing another upset to the listeners of love songs. Now it appears love songs peple are leaving and escape people won't take the bait. So they have created another channel that no one wants?
Really a shame because Velvet would have been a great name for a second BEZ station. I understand "love songs" is to be renamed. It would be nice to have TWO BEZ stations. Oh well there still is DMX with beautiful instrumentals. Need a big dish to do that one right but then I think dish network has those channels.

Dish has Muzak, in addition to Sirius XM, DirecTV has Sonic Tap which is DMX rebranded

The problem with Muzak, DMX and Music Choice is that they're not designed to be listened to for anything but being blasted over a retail loud speaker or in a waiting room. The playlists are limited and the variety isn't that great on specific channels. You can tell some marketing goofballs put the channels, and the playlists of these channels together to try to create 'mood' and 'ambiance' audio for specific environments that make people more comfortable and therefore more likely to buy crap. XM and Sirius, at least originally were designed by people who enjoyed music and knew how music mixes should be. I find a pretty noticeable difference between listening to satellite radio versus the more canned DMX and Music Choice .

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

As time passes I find more and more to like about Sirius XM. On Monday, the practically all day tribute to the late great Buddy Baker on NASCAR Radio was one of the best things I've heard in a long time. I was glad that I had the privilege to be a Sirius XM subscriber.

If you like it now, you would have loved it before the merger.

I miss XM.

 

[jegrant]

Seems like there's a pattern here. I would say XM being bought by Sirius is like DirecTV being bought by AT&T, or even Sears being bought by Kmart. Seems like the worst management team always ends up in charge, and further drives product quality down to just barely above the point where consumers quit buying it.

 

[king3pj]

Of importance that you do. I take it you enyoy them significantly. But one morning you wake up and find that the vomitus channel has replaced them. I think you would be not very happy about that especially if you are in a circumstance where you have no alternative. That is


what commonly happens now on SXM. They care not at all about their customers. This just happenned to listeners of Escape, Sunny before that and how many others. Tampa says I do not like SXM and he is right, there is less to like every passing day. Fortunately I have alternatives.

Here's the thing, they aren't pulling channels you like just to be an evil corporation. They want to offer channels people like so they will keep subscribing. If they pulled Escape, chances are that their numbers say no one listens to it.

They aren't pulling popular channels just to pull them. They are pulling unpopular channels to try and replace them with something more people might like.

 

[EarDemon]

If you like it now, you would have loved it before the merger.

I miss XM.

While I still have some mixed feelings about it, for the most part I actually like the service better now post-merger. I had XM since a few months after it launched, and Sirius within the first years of its nationwide launch. I remember when XM had commercials on the music channels, when they carried MTV Radio, when they had NASCAR Radio 2 with in car audio and if I was awake I listened to nearly every second of the 'March to a Million'. I’ve been through just about every channel removal and launch except for the removal of the two Chinese channels. Part of the reason why I had both is because both services were too extreme at times. XM played a lot of obscure bands and a lot of B tracks on their rock channels, Sirius played the same artists and bands over and over and usually only their hit songs. Buzzsaw should have been just called the AC/DC channel, so I listened to Bone Yard most of the time. But on the other hand, Octane was a huge refresher if I just got done listening to Squizz. Having both services allowed me to switch between the two philosophies. When I got tired of hearing the same stuff over and over I went back to XM, when I got tired of hearing obscure stuff I went back to Sirius. It’s just my opinion but for the channels I listen to, I think Sirius XM does a great job of balancing between the two schools of thought.

One of the things I miss from before the merger was that talk channel that aired syndicated talk shows. I liked The John & Jeff Third Shift America Show, which I believe no longer exists. I used to work nights when that show was on XM, and I really liked listening to that, if for no other reason to hear other people who didn’t conform to the traditional white color 9-5 schedule. I remember listening to Bubba The Love Sponge on that same channel years before he went to Sirius and was on one of Stern’s channels. Another thing I miss is X Country, which introduced me to some great alt country bands. Outlaw Country is not a suitable replacement. I forgot what Sirius called their alt country station before replacing it with Outlaw.

But there’s a lot I like about the combined service. The playlists of the individual channels, new channels such as Y2Kountry and Rural Radio, Wednesdays when I get home from work I love listening to 666 Live on Liquid Metal, the sports shows are now real sports talk shows. I remember when NFL Radio and NHL Radio first came about, they were basically highlight channels with the latest league news at the top of the hours and a few callers. Now these channels are much better. Lots of other things I enjoy about the new Sirius XM versus the old Sirius and the old XM as well.

 

[EarDemon]

Update: Apparently the new name for #17 love songs is"Escape Love".

Are you seeing that on your radio or hearing it on station bumpers?

On my way home from work I tuned to 17 and it's still called Love with the same logo according to my radio. I couldn't make it through the whole song to listen for a station bumper, but during the days when the Sirius and XM channel lineups were merging, many channels had bumpers that included the names of both the Sirius and XM channels. Ie 'You're listening to the Biggest Tracks of the later generation of classic rock on Classic Rewind'. Maybe they are doing something similar as channels merge.

 

[TheKrell]

On my way home from work I tuned to 17 and it's still called Love with the same logo according to my radio.

Same here.