When will the dual receiver be out??

[tomcrown1]

When will the Receiver that gets both XM and Sirus be out?? What will the charge be to get both package??

 

[paja]

When will the Receiver that gets both XM and Sirus be out?? What will the charge be to get both package??

That is an interesting subject. I am a dual sub, with one sub from each service. I liked that because each service programmed similar genres differently. I was looking forward to the interoperable receiver to get the best of both services on one unit. Now the word is that they will be getting rid of many of the dual genres, in other words, they will have one 60's station one 70's etc. For me, who is only interested in the music, an interoperable receiver is no longer of any good to me. In fact, I'll probably drop one of my subs since the music will be essentially the same on both XM & Sirius.

 

[BobMurdoch]

I added the Best of Sirius to my XM SkyFi2 in my car, and discontinued my Sirius subscription that I had on an old Sportster unit that I pretty much kept for football games, playboy, and maybe Radio Margaritaville every now and then....

As long as this system of the Best of Sirius sticks around, I'm good....

 

[truckracer]

We will all have to wait and see how the services pan out. I think its too early in the transition to make a good call.

 

[drdroo]

The interoperable receiver is at least 6 or 9 months off. I haven't heard anything about when it's coming out, but Mel K said something about it a few months ago being that far out.

Any timelines I'd double so you don't get disappointed. I'm a bit jaded about timelines.

 

[BobMurdoch]

At this point, who cares? They just nuked half of what made XM what it was.... Cinemagic is gone until 1/1/09, UPop gone.... A dozen others...

The Best of Sirius gives me most of what I wanted.... If they give me both services for $18 I might do it.... otherwise, why bother if half the music channels are duplicated on both services....

I dropped my Sirius subscription when the Best of Sirius became available.... That is probably going to be it unless they give a real sweetheart deal to get both....

 

[drdroo]

I'm not sure what they intend to do as far as plans for both services. If MLB were available on Best of XM (supposedly they need to cut another deal with MLB to do that) then I might have interest in Best of XM, but aside from that, I don't care. For the most part the Red Sox games are readily available on AM or FM here unless I venture over to Vermont to visit family.

However, I do think that having a device that can subscribe to either or both service is a must. First and foremost because they are legally obligated by the Government to do so, but also because that way a customer can choose what they want. By saying 'choose what they want', I mean potentially an a-la-carte solution across both services where you can create your own radio experience (something that has been discussed previously by Mel K). Also, this would mean the customer is empowered to buy from either or both services.

Just because you're happy with your situation, Bob, doesn't mean that other people are or that they couldn't be made happier. Considering the amount of e-mail I handle each day, there's some room to improve as well as reduce the confusion.

I am disappointed Cinemagic will get the axe, namely because I have friends who listen to it. Then again, I was against the merger in the first place because I felt Sirius worked too hard to develop their brand to ruin it in this manner. But, this is what we get now. (EDIT: At least Cinemagic will be back.. Not sure why they ditched it until 1-1).

 

[BobMurdoch]

Let me clarify my point...... I would have been open to the idea of subscribing to both services IF they were unique.

With this midnight massacre, many XM channels were killed and replaced with their Sirius "equivalents". Sirius has always felt that the people were the draw (Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) and had lots of talking DJs talking over the music.

One of the things I liked about the XM brand was that most channels had limited chatter and just focused on the music, and dug DEEP into the catalog to come up with unique music that I haven't heard for years on many of the nostalgia channels. Sirius is sacrificing breadth for familiarity. That's a choice they made, which is fine. I disagree with it, but as they are the monopoly now, they get to do it with impunity now.

I understand they are in a fight for their very survival. I'm an XM Sirius stockholder who has watched my investment fall 90% in value, so I understand what you are up against as far as cutting costs. Unfortunately, removing most of what made XM what it was is gone now and you have dramatically reduced the incentive to sign up for both. If they had been left alone, I would have gotten the dual receiver. I DID subscribe to both for the last 4 years. I cancelled Sirius when they added the Best of Sirius and gave me enough critical content (mostly the NFL) to get on my XM radio.

If you are going to have the dual radio, you are going to have to give a substantial discount to subscribe to both as half the service is duplicated now on both platforms.....

$19.99 should do it, but you need to do the family discount so households with 4 radios in them like myself, don't wind up paying $80 a month for the service or it won't happen.

 

[drdroo]

If you are going to have the dual radio, you are going to have to give a substantial discount to subscribe to both as half the service is duplicated now on both platforms.....

$19.99 should do it, but you need to do the family discount so households with 4 radios in them like myself, don't wind up paying $80 a month for the service or it won't happen.

Just to be clear, I don't work for Sirius, I work for (arguably) the largest online dealer of Siirus and Sirius accessories on the Internet.

I think you'll find that a dual receiver will probably offer two ways to buy, one of which is by Government requirement. Sirius agreed in a post merger world people would have a-la-carte options so they could basically program things the way they want. Not necessarily a "I want this but not this", but something along those lines. They also agreed to a pricing freeze for several years.

The homogenization of the music channels between services isn't unprecedented but it was something I hoped I'd not see because it reduces the need for a dual receiver and reduces the difference between the two services (which may be why they did it). It is ultimately a Coke vs Pepsi situation and as it goes, some pick one over the other with good reasons for themselves.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Thanks for the clarification, the tone of your earlier post made it sound like you were within the company....

I still love the promise of satellite radio, and compared to the "free" radio I left behind, it is still a huge leap in satisfaction, just not as huge as it was last week....

Hopefully, they can add a few more goodies to please subscribers, like adding both feeds of NFL and MLB games in the future to XM (XM users on BOS only get one feed)

 

[kluken]

Maintiainig 2 satellite infrastructures is bad economics, I suspect within 5 years you'll see them annouce the phase out of one of them, I suspect Sirus since there are more XM receivers and I belive the XM infrastructure is more robust. BUT that being said with Sirius as the owner one never knows....

 

[drdroo]

The Sirius system favors the Canadians and the Northern part of the US. They oculd probably find some way to combine the two to have the best of both worlds.

I am disappointed that they have basically homogenized the service though. I'm starting to hear censored tracks on Octane of all things. wtf..