Sirius is pissing in the ears of its subscribers

I dont know, I tried to give it a chance, but today was the last straw.

I was pretty upset about the ridiculous removal of Boombox and the unwillingness of Sirius programming to consider the fact that they have multiple channels not only doing the same thing as each other, but also the same as any number of FM stations we can get for free while unique formats like Boombox are being destroyed.

I tried to give it a chance and was happy to finally have the 1 channel I ever gave a damn about from XM, Cinemagic brought to Sirius 81. today I was listening to that channel and it suddenly went in to a nonstop looping commercial for the return of the Strobe on the 15th to channel 81. I thought I saw someplace that in order to get back the Strobe and Backspin, Sirius subscribers would only lose that worthless Pop2K channel. I called customer service and no one there had an answer as to why we are going to be hearing this 2 minute loop for the next 10 days, or weather or not Cinemagic would be moved to another channel. their official answer was "we have no answer" but they were sure glad to brag to me about the return of the Strobe. Had that return been of Boombox, I may have given half a damn... but even that effort may be too little too late at this point. I cant imagine the majority of the subscriber base for both Sirius and XM are happy about the recent changes and lack of assistance from the people they pay every month.

add to this the discovery of a censored Bubba show today, and Im officially wondering what the hell we are all paying for.

no more unique genres
more and more censored content
channels that are FM clones
reduced playlists
sound quality going down
station ID between EVERY song

Im sure commercials in the music arent far off.

my primary radio is a lifetime plan which I got for Howard, and in 2 years when hes possibly done it will have more than paid for itself.. and even though I dont pay for it on a monthly basis, I feel like canceling it just to make a point as to how worthless I feel this service has become. I used to be thrilled with my purchase and now Im ashamed to be a Sirius customer at all. I had 3 extra subscriptions under my primary and have canceled 2 of them. Im using CDs in my car again for the first time in years because theres just nothing that seems to satisfy my listening desires.

does anyone else feel like they have been totally taken advantage of as paying customers?

Sirius is pissing in the ears of its subscribers, and Im going to try and organize siriuslypissed.org as a place for people to voice their opinions and concentrate their feedback since other recent efforts have apparently been stifled in some way and have gone dark. any ideas would be welcomed. Im not looking to have a flame war on here.. I know some people are happy with the recent changes and thats fine.. Im just an annoyed subscriber looking to communicate with other annoyed subscribers to see what, if anything can be done to make a difference so everyone can be happy with a service that used to be great and seemed to care about the quality of their product.

I completely agree with pretty much everything. Cinemagic was actually good, I even heard a block of scores from Anime movies that are hard to find even on a site like Amazon. Aside from that, nothing XM has contributed is worth listening to.

They took away Boombox, which implies that they only care about dance club ravers and not hard techno fans. Then they have the audacity to reffer Boombox listeners to Faction, because there's a tiny little block of techno late at night, sometimes. Plus they took away the Punk channel, which was one of the few stations that I could leave on all the time and not get tired of. Then there's Lithium, which has gotten so overrun with Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots, that it's not worth listening to anymore.

I understand that it costs money to run each channel, but that money should be spent on music, not DJs and commercials, that's why i spent $600 getting my whole Sirius package together, so I wouldn't have to deal with that crap anymore. Each channel could be an iPod on shuffle for all I care, as long as my display unit tells me the band info, i don't need anyone else telling me who it is. The only reason i could see to have a DJ is for a live request show, besides that, keep em off the air and take em off the payroll. I paid that money to NOT hear interruptions.

I also understand that each person has their own musical tastes. Just because I miss Punk and Boombox doesn't mena that everyone else does. But Sirius listeners should know better than anyone that if you don't like something, you have at least 100 other options. I'd fight just as hard for any other channel, whether I listen to it or not. There's always a demographic to cater to. If Sirius wants to condense their channels, they should at the very least make it a democracy and let the people vote for which channels they want to stay on. I wouldn't mind getting pissed on so much if I at least had the option to close my mouth.

Sirius Will never be able to make everyone happy…But where else can you voice your opinion and management and they try to acommodate you? no where but Sirius.... if you think cancelling your service is the answer ask yourself what are you gonna do then? Listen to free Radio? Who are you all kidding you are all going Nowhere!!!As far as Bubba goes... Howard said it himself today..this is good for Bubba he gets what he wanted..time off to spend with his family which Bubba said himself is going down hill…Bubba is #1 in Tampa so he gets more money..He still gets to do a live show on Sirius on Fridays while Howards show is not live. When Bubba Goes over the line or possibly gets fired from free radio eventually he will..he can come back then and then Sirius will be in much better shape and everything will work it self out….There is still plenty of things to listen to on Howard 101 so if your a Bubba fan he still there + much more! And lets not forget everything else Sirius has to offer like ALL the other selections available that you will listen on your cell phone soon..Stop crying about everylittle thing this company is doing...Its growing and will always be making changes...Its Just GOOD business...

I saw your similar response in the talk thread earlier today and, Im not going to disagree. Im not saying the service is useless to everyone.. theres a lot of channels to pick from and if you like the stuff thats on them, youre going to be happy, or at the very least, content. if you picked the service for the things you can not hear anywhere else unless you are tethered to a computer, paying heavy data rate cell fees, (providing you live in an area with good coverage) or spending hours programming play lists yourself, well then I think people have a right to be upset.

I dont think canceling will be a big deal for a lot of people who lost all the things they subscribed for. if I join a gym because I want to lift free weights and they get rid of all the benches and replace them with bikes, why would I continue to pay a membership there? just because theres a lot of other content doesnt mean youre going to suddenly develop a liking for it. if I can find 100 other channels to listen to just because they are there and not be passionate about, then yeah, free radio would actually fill that minuscule desire.

Ive been listening to Howard for about 19 years and listening to him talk about this Bubba thing today, I honestly feel like its one of the few times that he has not been speaking honestly. you could kind of hear it in his voice. I think he is truly disappointed as well. Im not mad at Bubba, hes doing what he has to do, but I am disappointed in Sirius for not being honest about a lot of whats been going on. yes change can be good business,.. blindsiding your customers might not be the best way to practice it though.

granted it will change shape over time, but will it be for the better or for the cheaper? if no one ever complains why would they ever lean towards the better?

The simple undeniable fact of all this, is that since Sirius and XM stopped having to compete, and went through with this merger - they have become woefully generic. Some stations got more content, but its nothing I can't hear on my local caveman radio stations.

Unique channels and content have been tossed for reruns with gobs of overlap, channels dedicated to individual artists, and obnoxious DJ's who lack the professionalism of their terrestrial peers.

Bring back the unique content, lose the DJ's, and get back to more music, more content, and less advertising. I've got an iPod, and I'm not afraid to use it.

The best thing Sirius ever did was have a fake cat host its comedy show.

Oddly enough, after this whole discussion yesterday about censorship on Sirius, "Saving Abel" came on the local terrestrial pop station with their single "Addicted." Now they've got some choice lyrics in that song, specifically "Going Down" which you will NOT hear on Sirius, you instead here the altered "Rolling Round."

The caveman radio station played a less edited version than Sirius.

WTF?

I know it costs money to program each radio station. I get it.

But I'm very frustrated that stations keep disappearing like this. I know in my wife's case she all but stopped listening when one of her talk stations disappeared about 6 months ago (I don't even remember the name but the content was all that self-help crap like Deepak Chopra, et al). I normallly listened to Buzzsaw/Octane most of the time but then Buzzsaw disappeared for 6 weeks to become AC/DC radio (I like AC/DC but geez not that much) and then replaced by the XM equivalent, boneyard.

The other thing that frustrates me is the ludicrously tight rotation, and it seems to be on every station, at least the ones I listen to. I was on a 6 hour trip to Cleveland in late January, and like clockwork on Boneyard -- Rush, Van Halen, etc. Again, I LIKE Rush and Van Halen, but I'm not expecting to hear one of their songs every 45 minutes. I started listening to Blues 74 (Sirius) for a while and even THERE I started noticing the same songs over and over within a few weeks of listening. My wife has tried listening to a few stations at work and each one of them goes to the same songs over and over.

It seems like the programming geniuses are interested in attracting the 30-day trial folks who have Sirius/XM in their brand new cars. But they aren't interested in keeping folks like US who want it to be about the music. I'm all for it if each important genre has a "30 second attention span" channel, which is pretty much what we have now, and a 2nd, more serious "deep rotation" channel for true fans of that genre.

Which brings me to another subject -- bandwidth. I welcome the addition of new channels, but not at the expense of old ones. One would assume there's plenty of bandwidth. And as I said, I understand programming costs. But it's starting to feel like cable TV where you have to lose something to gain something else.

I agree 100%. I notice at least a Def Leppard song an hour on Boneyard (Def Leppard belongs on Hair Nation in my opinion). The same is true with Rush and Van Halen being over played. Also song repitition is horrible on Boneyard, it seems like the same songs played everyday.
I emailed Jon Zellner, Senior Vice President Music Programming Sirius XM and asked him why they play so little Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath on Boneyard. He replied "there are 78 Led Zeppelin songs and 133 Black Sabbath songs in the library". I replied that I would bet money that in the 2 months that Boneyard has been on the air there is no way 78 different Led Zeppelin songs and 133 Black Sabbath songs have been played. He said he would make sure that Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath are being rotate properly and I must say I have noticed more Led Zeppelin and Sabbath songs being played.
Now we just need them to calm down on the Def Leppard.
I encourage everyone to send in their suggestions and thoughts because clearly they need to fix this channel.

You just reminded me, with the complaint about Def Leppard. Is somebody running to every station from Octane up to Coffe House and slipping "Rage Against the Machine" in the rotation? There are times when I can't find a rock station to avoid RATM. I sorta liked them, in the 90s, when their last album came out. I dont care so much for the subversive and hypocritical propoganda that passes for lyrics since then... I don't need to hear them every 2 hours on every single rock station. They were relevant 15 years ago, not now.

Totally agree with the OP...redundant music, forcefeeding of music(mandatory metallica for a month straight on LM), suffering sound quality...it's getting ridiculous.

I'll tell you why satellite radio is going downhill...money. Cut corners, save some cash. Everyone's doing it more than ever now that the economy is in the hole.

It's only going to get worse, so we'll either have to deal with it or stop giving them our money. Maybe if they lose enough business, they'll change their shady ways and go back to the way it use to be.

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Originally Posted by Blank-Disk

I understand that it costs money to run each channel, but that money should be spent on music, not DJs and commercials, that's why i spent $600 getting my whole Sirius package together, so I wouldn't have to deal with that crap anymore. Each channel could be an iPod on shuffle for all I care, as long as my display unit tells me the band info, i don't need anyone else telling me who it is. The only reason i could see to have a DJ is for a live request show, besides that, keep em off the air and take em off the payroll. I paid that money to NOT hear interruptions.

AMEN. A good share of satellite DJs are no less annoying and full of themselves than FM DJs. The guy will the gravelly voice on XM KISS 21 is probably the worst. The ClearChannel-owned XM channels (KISS is one of them,) do the same thing you are talking about, using a recorded voice to tell you the song title and artist, despite the info being right there on the screen. I swear I always scream at my radio and say, "Yes, I know who it is, thank you!!!" And they're so arrogant with the way they go about it. It's almost condescending. They really think they are awesome and know EXACTLY what we want to hear.


But Sirius listeners should know better than anyone that if you don't like something, you have at least 100 other options. I'd fight just as hard for any other channel, whether I listen to it or not. .

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Completely agree with that too.

Im listening to the eminem interview....too bad for those people that aren't near an SXM radio.


watchugahndu?

Good Morning,

Let me start out by saying that I have been a subscriber to Sirius for several years and overall have been satisfied. Since the merger which resulted in Buzzsaw being removed I have become frustrated with the song selections on Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, Deep Track, and the Boneyard. The groups that were played on these stations before the merger have become a thing of the past. No more mix of Classic, Southern, Blues, Heavy Metal music. Now The Boneyard has become a steady rotation of the same groups that as a whole are great but some groups just don’t belong in that genre. Cheap Trick as well as Billy Squire and Autograph are 3 of the groups that are hardly Hard and Heavy.

When the playlists were made before the merger, the variety that was The Buzzsaw kicked ass and that’s the truth. I rarely changed the station unless one of the Artists or songs I had saved came up. Now there is no more Gator Country, Dreams, Stone Blue, Green Grass, You Could Be Mine, Tightrope, Back On The Road Again, just to name a few of my saved songs.

The Vinyl, Rewind, and Deep Tracks have just gone straight down the tubes since the merger as well. If the program managers would take a listen to the people that are listening maybe things would be different. Priest on Classic Rewind? No I don’t think so. Deep Tracks is the GREATEST disappointment of them all. When it was the vault at least they played songs that rocked. Now its just 25 minute long songs that could put a 3 year old to sleep in a matter of minutes.

Now I know that no playlist is going to make all listeners happy but The Boneyard is the first station you need to start with. Then work on the Vinyl and Rewind.

In closing I would like to say that as a whole I am not happy with Sirius/XM at all and find myself listening to more of Howard Stern and the comedy channels than the music stations. I only wish that I could spend a week with the music directors and discuss their selections. I look forward to hearing from you as well as anyone that welcomes my input.

Have a great day

I haven't been on these forums for quite a while because I have just about given up. I have both Sirius & XM subscriptions and I used to be an ardent supporter but I have stopped listening almost completely. I'll still keep the services as the rest of the family does listen some. I'm now streaming FNST radio from the internet & listening to podcasts.

You have all heard the story before so many times. Soul Town is unlistenable. The narrow playlist on Chan. 6 is irritating. I now listen to Matt The Cat via podcast. The overall audio quality is miserable. I miss Moments to Remember. etc. etc. etc.

I am now embarrassed when some friends that I previously talked into subscribing have dropped their subscriptions. What can I say to apologize?

I just can't believe how quickly this service was destroyed. Just a year ago I was so happy with it. This is so sad.

To Jordan, Blankdisk & all those complaining about the DJs. Yes, I have to agree with you. There was a time when DJs with intelligent comments were a great addition to both services but what they have now with a few exceptions is embarrassingly bad. Yeah when you have PAD why do you need someone? The morning people on XM Chan. 20 are especially terrible. That's not my kind of channel but my daughter listens to it in the car----except in the morning. She can't take it either. Please note that I am NOT talking about Phlash. He does a great job with his show. One of the very few people left that are worth listening to.

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Originally Posted by MVR

I dont know, I tried to give it a chance, but today was the last straw.

I was pretty upset about the ridiculous removal of Boombox and the unwillingness of Sirius programming to consider the fact that they have multiple channels not only doing the same thing as each other, but also the same as any number of FM stations we can get for free while unique formats like Boombox are being destroyed.

I tried to give it a chance and was happy to finally have the 1 channel I ever gave a damn about from XM, Cinemagic brought to Sirius 81. today I was listening to that channel and it suddenly went in to a nonstop looping commercial for the return of the Strobe on the 15th to channel 81. I thought I saw someplace that in order to get back the Strobe and Backspin, Sirius subscribers would only lose that worthless Pop2K channel. I called customer service and no one there had an answer as to why we are going to be hearing this 2 minute loop for the next 10 days, or weather or not Cinemagic would be moved to another channel. their official answer was "we have no answer" but they were sure glad to brag to me about the return of the Strobe. Had that return been of Boombox, I may have given half a damn... but even that effort may be too little too late at this point. I cant imagine the majority of the subscriber base for both Sirius and XM are happy about the recent changes and lack of assistance from the people they pay every month.

add to this the discovery of a censored Bubba show today, and Im officially wondering what the hell we are all paying for.

no more unique genres
more and more censored content
channels that are FM clones
reduced playlists
sound quality going down
station ID between EVERY song

Im sure commercials in the music arent far off.

my primary radio is a lifetime plan which I got for Howard, and in 2 years when hes possibly done it will have more than paid for itself.. and even though I dont pay for it on a monthly basis, I feel like canceling it just to make a point as to how worthless I feel this service has become. I used to be thrilled with my purchase and now Im ashamed to be a Sirius customer at all. I had 3 extra subscriptions under my primary and have canceled 2 of them. Im using CDs in my car again for the first time in years because theres just nothing that seems to satisfy my listening desires.

does anyone else feel like they have been totally taken advantage of as paying customers?

Sirius is pissing in the ears of its subscribers, and Im going to try and organize siriuslypissed.org as a place for people to voice their opinions and concentrate their feedback since other recent efforts have apparently been stifled in some way and have gone dark. any ideas would be welcomed. Im not looking to have a flame war on here.. I know some people are happy with the recent changes and thats fine.. Im just an annoyed subscriber looking to communicate with other annoyed subscribers to see what, if anything can be done to make a difference so everyone can be happy with a service that used to be great and seemed to care about the quality of their product.

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I agree that the sound quality has gotten worse since the channel merger last november. It is so bad that i can't listen anymore and have returned to terrestrial radio,aaaarrrgh! I have a sportster 4 that has a replay function; before the channel merger, the amount of time that was stored on replay was about 45 minutes for the music channels, now that has increased to between 52 and 62 minutes depending on the channel. This indicates a dramatic decrease in bitrate. I have e-mailed customer service and called on the phone, and the reply i get is that they have not had any similar complaints and they will look into it. B.S.!! I have a lifetime sub, so i will keep it for now to see if it improves, but i can't listen anymore right now. What a damn shame!!

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Originally Posted by ChrisJames

I have a sportster 4 that has a replay function; before the channel merger, the amount of time that was stored on replay was about 45 minutes for the music channels, now that has increased to between 52 and 62 minutes depending on the channel.

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They will call it a "feature" not a bug/problem. They increased the storage space of your Sportster for free!

I've noticed the sound quality getting worse too, even on the internet feed (although the bitrate of the stream seems to have stayed the same).