Oh, the timing. Sirius XM (SIRI) has received a de-listing notice from the NASDAQ for their perpetual and non-compliant sub $1 closing bid price. Well, it just so happens I’m also considering dropping Sirius XM from my digital lineup (again) this week.
My XM annual subscription is up and I’m questioning satellite radio’s value. Don’t get me wrong, I mostly enjoy the programming. In the scheme of things, $15 or so a month isn’t a big deal. And unlike TiVo’s monthly fees, Sirius XM actually provides content. But something about the way they operate leaves me feeling nickle and dimed. Starting with the BS royalty fees. Moving on to the horrid commercial advertising (on non-music stations). Followed by the online streaming upsell… a service that used to be included. To make matters more complex for me, Sirius XM still hasn’t figured out how to actually combine Sirius & XM. My subbed car is XM. My Sonos is Sirius. Never the twain shall meet.
So how much is satellite radio worth? The poll I ran last summer had 400+ respondents, with 41% willing to pay $6-$9/month. I’d go even higher. But let’s bundle everything together in a tidy little package that includes all made up fees and online streaming. But as it stands, I’m not sure I get enough value to carry on. Especially given my daily 90 minute afternoon commute has been replaced with stress-free 10 minute drive.
I called 6 months ago and talked them down to 6$ a month but I now use Rhapsody anyway for my PC music playing – CDs in the car –
since I can not currently stream rhapsody on my phone I might drop the radio sub and try it on my phone for a while.
I pre-paid a year and it just so happens that credit card has since expired. So, for me, there’s no calling unless I want to try and negotiate. Not sure I care enough. Although $6/mo would keep me around. Shoot, Melissa and I spend more than that on drinks when we hit the SBUX any given weekend.
I paid for the $4/mo for an annual Slacker subscription not so long ago, which I’m very pleased with. It’ll be even better once they enable iPhone caching. (Although I’m likely to jump to the Sprint Nexus One in the near future…)
How your stupid article made it to my stock app makes me seriously consider changing apps. You make no sense whatsoever and your article should not be considered news. It’s only on here because it is negative on Siri, so they push it through. This should be posted in some high school library newsboard. Enjoy your 15 min of fame now. Cheapo can’t even afford 13$ a month for the best music content available in the us. Should they give you free Internet streaming, why dont you ask all of the well paid artists to not charge Siriusxm and then you can get everything free. You Probably complain about having to pay your taxes too. There is 0% chance that Siriusxm will be delisted by NASDAQ, and as far as being delisted by you, well nobody cares, sorry. Go write about the tree in your front yard, if you even have one.
I dumped XM a year or so ago and haven’t missed it. I highly recommend a dedicated Slacker player as a replacement, and they’re selling the G2 for only $129 now. I leave mine in the car, except when it needs to be synced and it works perfectly. I don’t miss XM, and I definitely don’t miss the price.
Dear Idiot, please take your trolling, name calling, and penny stock pumping elsewhere. I could give a shit about Sirius stock valuation, and did not render an opinion on the letter they received from the NASDAQ or likely outcome. Feel free to debate or disagree with the topic, but the other jerky stuff is not welcome and will be banned/spammed.
Regarding my 15 minutes of fame, this post has been syndicated to Technologzier and the NY Times has previously cited my satellite radio discontent. Sorry. ;)
He didn’t even spell your name right…who’s the idiot now?
We bought a VW tiguan in the Fall with Nav and have been using the free sirius trial, but I think its about to expire this month. I love Alt Nation, but I don’t think its worth paying for…
Plus, VW is supposed to release a firmware update this month for our OEM Nav unit that will enable HD radio sub-channels. I think that will offset the loss of the Sirius subscription.
You pay for cable, with commercials, you pay for cell phone, you pay for Internet on that cell phone, you pay for nespaper or magazines, you pay for all of these things and I don’t hear you complaining about the commercials in the newspapers/magazines, or the cable tv with tons of commercials, the phone does not have commercials, but you pay well over $100 per month + $40 a month for Internet, maybe you have a cheaper plan, ok so you still pay over $50 a month. The commercials on the talk shows on Sirius are a time filler because they can’t talk forever. They also keep the monthly fee down. The royalty fee is because of the music world, not Siri, they will all be paying that soon, Free Internet music, to am/fm stations. Sirius just manned up and is paying like it
should. As far as the name calling, it may be childish, but it’s better than having an objective to mislead people. As far as spelling your name wrong, can you blame me, I’ve never heard the name before, sorry. Just answer how you can justify all of the aforementioned subscriptions, most with commercials and triple the price of Sirius, and think that $13 a month for over 120 stations most without commercials is not worth it? I am not a paid anybody, other than from my profession. The last thing is the fact that you said they are two companies, and that is correct. That was because ofthe dragged out SEC approval, and debt restrictions, preventing them from merging companies. If you did some homework before spewing out your comments, you would know that they just Friday, refinanced those two restricting debts tat were preventing the merger. As far as simply the quality, not the stock, just name one music platform that is better. You can’t because it dosent exist. 90 million activated Sirius radios on the road by 2015, like it or not, it is here and it is staying. It will cost you more to find a new car without sat radio, than with. You will have to ask for a package without it because they are preinstaled in most cars now, and almost all in the future. Once finally fully merged, their will be one call center, one company. The name calling has stopped, let’s have a Sirius discussion.
I hate XM. I quit the service, because I just wasn’t using it. I didn’t have any beefs with the company and left on a happy note, just trying to cut unused expenses out of my budget.
That was until they started calling me to try and get me back. I started getting a call on my cell phone from the same number pretty much evey day. I don’t answer my phone if I don’t recognize the number. I figure if it’s important enough, they will leave a message. But this number never left a message, so I figured it was a telemarketer. Then it started to ring my phone twice a day everyday. I finally got fed up and googled the number. It was an XM sales number! At this point I’m pissed. So I decide the next time they call I’m going to give them a piece of my mind and tell them to stop calling. So when it rings I answer, it’s an automated dialer, so I’m on hold while it connects me to the next available sales person. I’m already so frustrated, I just hang up.
At this point I have assigned that number on my iphone a silent ring tone, so other than seeing I received a missed call, I don’t ever hear them calling (unless I have it on vibrate).
Point of my rant…If XM ever had a chance of getting me back as a customer, they have long since destroyed it. And in fact every chance their name comes up in conversation, I’ll bad mouth them to who ever listens. All they had to do was change their dialing system to stop calling a number that doesn’t answer after say 10 tries and I would have been fine.
Idiot, if you don’t see me complaining about advertising, it’s because you don’t read this blog.
Here’s a classic run in the Miami Herald: Dave Zatz, a 37-year-old network engineer in Herndon, Va., isn’t happy about it because he bought a TiVo digital video recorder and pays a subscription to skip ads. “It’s obnoxious,” he said of the ads that appear when a TV program is paused. He said other ads have been on the periphery or appear on the menu page. This is the first time he’s noticed TiVo layering an ad on top of an actual program. He said he’s been wondering, “Who are TiVo’s customers?” People like him, or advertisers? “They’re getting paid on both ends.” And I’m particularly fond of this post title: TiVo Spam Machine Revs Engines.
Having said that, I’m accustomed to ads and recognize their value to many businesses. By themselves, it’s not enough to push me out. And I have no problem spending money on tech and services I value. But seriously, by most measures XM runs a number of low quality advertising spots. Also, the frequency of advertising interruption has increased on stations like the uncensored comedy. (Then again, I stopped listening to that station months ago because of it. Maybe it’s different now.) They’d be better off with a moment of silence. And, yes, the sad irony is my ad partners here on ZNF occasionally hit us with the tooth whitening or flab busting crap.
Your main point regarding my issues with the subscription fee(s), as related to the value I receive, is absurd though. Unless, you’re buying, I’ll decide how I spend my cash. And if XM were still $12.95, without new fees, and including streaming I’d probably never have made a move. They encouraged me to rethink things with each change. (When I originally subscribed, it was $9.95.)
I had Sirius for a year. Is it just me or is the sound quality on the music station terrible? I had it hard wired to my stereo also.
I can’t listen to songs that sound like terrible mp3’s. (and I’m definitely NOT a audiophile. My entire collection is 192k MP3’s)
OMG are you Sirius? I just saw this comment thread on my internet browser and it makes me siriously think about switching to IE instead. Don’t you have to have some kind of government license to comment on teh internet? How dare you not be satisfied with being nickel and dimed to listen to ads. Eat your gruel and be happy with it or the beatings will get worse.
At least Noe you are making some points about why, but I ask you, hasn’t all of those subcription based companies raised their price? Did you consider dropping your other subscrriptuons? Even if you doubled the cost of sat radio, it is still so much cheaper than tv, cell, Internet on cell. There os actually more content, and because they are now merged (although not fully to the point of one company, which will be happening soon) you can get either package with a “best of”, for only $3 more per month. Now you get both companies for less. Try have added new talent and are continuing to. The royalty fees are really not an issue, they have to be looked at as a “tax” that all companies playing music should have to pay. Even if Sirius gave away the service for free, you would still have to pay the royalty fee. There is so much posative news about the company, it just doesn’t make sense to think it is going anywhere but up (stock price that is) ad far as the service, I personally have had good experiances, however I understand that there os room for improvement. You have to remember though, there is over 18 million paying subsctibers and growing. To make all 18+ million happy is unrealistic. I respect your decesion not to carry forward with your subscription, however you should try to look at all aspects of the story. It really is worth the money to me And 18 million others. I do think that if you cancelled, you will regret it and at some point in the future, you will re subscribe, or you just won’t cancell. Don’t forget also about the lifetime subscription where you are locked in at a set price as an option. The cell phones, tivos, cable/direct tv’s won’t offer you that. In response to you’re comment about letting there be dead air time instead of commercials, think about how many people will be calling to complain about their radios Being broken or not working! All in all, when you compare to other subscription based services, it is by far a much better deal with more content.
The SEC may be finally doing something proactive. Just read SEC requested a copy of STOCK SHOCK–new movie about market manipulation and naked short selling of Sirius XM stock (among others). Amazon has the movie on DVD.
I just purchase more stocks of SIRI there is resistance at $0.82 and everyone should buy now and move the stock up and scare away all these shorts. As they say “No guts no glory”
Typical bag holder bashing anyone that dares complain about their belove sat radio. Pretty funny. I could write a book here but I’ll use simple example.
The royalty fee caps out at 8%. which for a sub is like $1.04. So what does Sirius do? The shaft you by cahrging you $2.00 ($1.99…whatever)….they simply show what kind of a company they really are. They don’t giev a crap about customers much les the shareholders they continue to rape.
It can’t come soon enough when Liberty simply takes this pig private and finds a more productive use of the in place satellites….it will happen…watch and learn
Even though I own SIRI stock (just for kicks bought 1,500 @ $0.15; wish I had guts to buy more when it was down to $0.05-0.06 due to bankruptcy speculations), I am not sure I will renew XM subscription in the car I bought at the end of December.
I used to subscribe to XM and was a pretty loyal listener (had first generation MyFi that I got at a promo price), but I am not thrilled with channel lineup on XM side of the company. I get Sirius channels through my cable company’s DISH service and those are much better.
FYI Dish dumped Sirius