My level of crankiness seems directly proportional to my caffeine intake, and I’ve been cutting back… Perhaps that’s why XM is also getting a second chance this week.
One of the reasons I canceled my satellite subscription last year was due to the encroaching ’80s pop onto some of my favored niche stations (Chrome, Groove). Not that I have anything against ’80s pop (my musical tastes are both eclectic and poor), but I thought the (selling) point of satellite radio is to provide unique content not commonly found on FM… Why would they dilute these musical genres?
Well before killing my sub, in January 2006, I emailed the station programmer at Chrome and this is how it played out:
What’s up with Chrome? Why am I hearing Madonna and Lisa Lisa on a disco channel?
We have expanded to play disco and classic dance by audience and subscriber request. We hope you are enjoying.
No, I am NOT enjoying – boo!
And that was the end of it. Until yesterday:
We have made more changes and hope you are enjoying it better.
Actually, I had canceled XM due to lineup changes. But I’m always willing to reconsider. What sort of changes have you made?
We have moved the special dance music, such as 80s and 90s and freestyle to new special shows heard only on the weekends. We would love to have you back.. you will not regret it!
I still prefer media subscriptions (and rentals) over purchases (iTunes isn’t playing along) and I’ve been hankering for new toys… So I checked in with Ryan, the satrad guru behind Orbitcast, to find a good deal on XM hardware. He made a few suggestions and I’ve settled on the Samsung Helix (pictured above) for $60 after rebate from MyRadioStore. It’s a bit of a downer they had to disable the integrated FM transmitter (when not in the car dock) because it exceeds FCC specs, but otherwise I’m looking forward to receiving my new musical gadget (plus XM web access).
I was gonna get one to record each day’s ‘Dan Patrick Show’ on ESPNRadio, but now it seems DP is leaving so XM is now relegated to ‘maybe for hockey season’ status.
Nice use of ‘boo’ btw.
Dave, if you haven’t actually ordered yet, I’ve got a used Roady you’re welcome to.
Thanks for the offer! I ordered prior to posting, and in the past I’ve had both the Roady2 and Roady XT. Thought it might be fun to try the “walkman” approach this time around and the price seemed very reasonable. Though I’m still trying to figure out what speakers I’ll use with this in the bedroom.
I’ve also got an extra Roady if anyone’s interested.
And if there’s anyone out there who’d like to make an offer on a Tivo Series 2 and wireless adapter, I’m open.
Wow! I thought it was just me.
I agree allot of the targeted stations have expanded the genre list to include other more popular cross over stuff in the past 6-10 months. The trend continues well at least it did through last month (canceled my membership after 3.5 years as a sub).
This all started about the same time XM made some managment changes that we now realize were to move the XM/Sirius merger through. These guys are old Citadel radio executives that have been purposely transforming the XM (and probably Sirius also) to more closely resemble regular radio. I consider it innovation in reverse. They may believe they are making it more marketable to the masses but in turn they are removing any reason to pay for the service.
I’m waiting for the Slacker Portable Player myself to come out.
I gotta agree here… great use of “Boo!”
Personally I almost cancelled last year when they dropped CNBC (love Countdown) and started running ads on the hits channels. Still barely listen to it, not sure its worth paying for it, even with my ridiculous commute. If they had a better NPR channel (anything is better, my crappy reception local SF station is better by far) maybe…
I requested second day air ($8.99) but the radio came next day. Awesome! Supposedly calling customer service and using code ZWINBACK gets you a year of service for $77. Gonna try it now.