Post-Merger: The State of Satellite Radio From a Subscriber's Perspective

Now that Sirius has merged with XM and we're two and a half months in to the merging of the music channels, and almost four months in to the "best of" packages, let's take a look at where we stand. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm coming at this from the perspective of an XM subscriber who has been signed up since May of 2004. I have three radios, and all are equipped with what is now known as "XM Everything" plus the Best of Sirius. I'll explain those packages in a minute.

First, for those who don't know me or who have never read my writings before, pre-merger, I was very much pro-XM and very anti-Sirius. Don't get me wrong; I felt both were definitely far superior to terrestrial, or AM/FM, radio. But, after a few months of extensive research into the programming of both comapnies, I went with XM in May of 2004 based mainly on the music offerings. At the time, both offered pretty similar news, talk, and sports line-ups, though Sirius had the NFL, which almost swayed me...But their shallower playlists, and in my opinion, inferior DJs and sound quality, made me go with XM. That, and the fact that XM's classic metal channel was adding Eddie Trunk's show that weekend helped seal the deal. A few months later, XM announced the addition of my favorite talkers Opie & Anthony, as well as PAC-10 college sports and Major League Baseball. This solidified my decision, knowing I'd be able to here O&A again after they'd been let go from terrestrial radio as well as my favorite sports teams from Arizona, even though I now reside in Seattle. XM then added the NHL, and the music channels, which were the original reason I signed up, continued to stay strong.

Let's fast-forward to the present. Again, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a loyal XM subscriber, though I am trying to be objective...If you want to see the history of Sirius's moves, and read more about what XM has also done in that time, please check out the only blog I read religiously, Orbitcast. In all seriousness, this is one, if you're interested in Satellite Radio, to save to your RSS reader and check several times a day.

Okay, if you've followed the news the last couple years, you know Sirius and XM decided to merge. That merger came to fruition last summer. We subscribers saw the fruits of that merger beginning in October of 2008 with the Best Of packages being offered from each company. Now, other than NFL radio, having listened to Sirius's programming, I couldn't have imagined anything I would've wanted from them, put I figured I'd pay the $4 per radio and give it a shot. As an XM subscriber, I get NFL Radio plus all NFL games, both Howard Stern Channels, Martha Stewart Radio, Playboy Radio, NASCAR Radio, and I think some other sports play-by-play.

The Pros:

• All the NFL Games
  
• Great NFL talk on NFL Radio. They have some really good hosts, most of whom are former coaches and players who know the game inside and out; certainly more interesting than ESPN's coverage
  
• After not listening to Howard for a number of years, it's actually kind of cool to occasionally flip Stern back on and hear him and Artie Lange.
  
• Thanks to Howard 101, I can hear Scott Ferrall, the guy whose show originally got me into sports talk when I lived in Phoenix and picked him up on a San Francisco AM station when I was in High School.
  
• Sometimes, Playboy Radio is good for a laugh.
  
• In all seriousness, NFL radio and the game feeds make the $4 a month worth it.
  

Cons to the Best Of:

• Martha Stewart Channel. Include this on the regular package. I don't mean to sound sexist, but most of what's been put in the best of Sirius package on XM is geared toward the male demographic, and I don't know of too many women who'd pay $4 for Martha.
  
• This is nit-picky, but NFL Radio's XM feed needs to update its liners. They're still playing promos for XM channels that, since the music channels merged on November 12, no longer exist...Mostly Ethel and XMX. They only tend to play as the first spot in a commercial break; it's odd.
  
• Unlike a Sirius subscriber, XM subs only get one feed for NFL games. The exceptions are playoff games, Sunday Night, Monday night, and Thursday night games. Sirius subs get both the home and away feed. XM subs should get the same thing.
  

For the Sirius subscribers, they get a Best of XM package for the same price which includes college sports, NHL, The Virus (Opie and Anthony Ron and Fez), and a few other channels. For more details on best-of packages, go to the companies' websites, www.xmradio.com and www.sirius.com.

On November 12, the two companies took the next step, merging their music channels. This was controversial for many reasons. I'll get into details shortly, but in short, many subscribers to this day still feel like they got screwed, for lack of a better word. XM subscribers feel like we lost the programmers who made our channels great in many cases, along with their names and playlists. Many Sirius subs feel the playlists on their favorite channels are now too deep in an effort to satisfy the tastes of the XM subscribers. I'm not sure how many subscribers really did cancel, but many threatened to do so on both sides, but mostly from the XM camp. Many blunders, in my opinion, were committed by Sirius XM at this point in time, and many have yet to be corrected, and probably never will.

The first place the companies went wrong was in how they informed, or didn't inform, subscribers of the pending channel change. Now, before any of you terrestrial fanboys start saying "well your favorite FM station doesn't tell you when they're going off the air", I know this. There's a difference. I'm not paying for AM or FM. I do pay for satellite radio. I also pay for cable, and generally, they let you know, at least my cable company does, when a channel may be going away. The only reason I found out what was happening was through This post on Orbitcast. Had it not been for Ryan, I would have been in the dark, so to speak, that any channel changes were coming up. Go to Orbitcast and check out his November archive, and look at the week of November 10. Look at not only the posts he made, but also the comments section, and see the passion with which the subscribers comment. Sure, there are a few idiots in there, but most are intelligent, well-reasoned comments.

The second thing the company did was kill off some pretty popular channels, and in some cases entire genres. They took away both companies' classic hip-hop and classic dance/disco channels. I'm not a fan, but both genres have pretty passionate fanbases. Both returned to the satellites, thanks to fan commentary, on January 14. Unfortunately, they also took away XM's Cross Country, or X-Country as it was known. Outlaw Country has made a valiant effort to shift into its place, especially now that we have enough classic country stations so that they don't need to fill that void for the Sirius listeners, but there's still quite a bit missing. Personally, I've found their program director to be very responsive and to be a great guy.Still a long way to go.

Many of us longtime XM subscribers have noticed that, especially in the rock category, the playlists are much shallower than what we're used to. The Sirius subscribers, at least those who comment on Orbitcast and other sites, don't seem to mind, but myself and many XM subs would like to see them deepen the rock playlists across the board on all of the rock channels. A perfect example of this is my recent post on The return of The Boneyard.

In closing, Sirius XM does have some work to do to fix/improve things. However, it's still much better than anything that's on terrestrial radio. It's nationwide. The reception is great. With my various XM receivers, I've rarely had service drop, and I've taken them all over the western part of the country, and have picked up my favorite XM stations in places where an AM or FM station can't get through. If I had to recommend a satellite package to a newcomer, I'd recommend going with XM Everything plus the Best of Sirius. It's the best value for the money...And if someone asks "Why pay for radio?", I have two answers.

1. The music is commercial-free, and both the talk and music are uncensored.
2. Unlike in terrestrial radio, the program directors actually seem to be interested in what listeners have to say as opposed to what an advertiser says.

So in the end, even with its problems, satellite radio is worth the money. I'd honestly give up my cable before I'd give up my XM.

Sirius-XM Brings Back the Boneyard; Now Let's Fix It!

As part of their post-merger activities, Sirius XM Satellite Radio merged many of their music channels, both to the happiness and annoyance of their subscribers. Channels were gained and lost on both sides. Two months later, the shake-up is still being felt by subscribers.

As part of the combining of channels, one of my favorites as a long-time XM subscriber, The Boneyard, was temporarily lost, replaced by AC/DC Radio. Finally, it was brought back on January 15 on XM channel 53 and Sirius channel 19. In bringing back the Boneyard on XM 53, Sirius listeners lost Buzz Saw, which was a similar channel, and The Boneyard's old home on XM, channel 41, was replaced by Sirius's Hair Nation. This channel, too, is somewhat similar to The Boneyard.

Okay, enough of the background...Now, on to the complaints and how I suggest fixing it after almost five years of having been a happy XM listener, and in particular, huge Boneyard fan.

First, to put it simply, just give me back my old, pre-November 12 Boneyard. Get rid of Hair Nation, and restore the Boneyard to what it had been...A mix of classic hard rock/metal and hair metal, along with new rock from those artists, and new artists still carrying on that sound. Doing this might also allow Sirius XM to bring back another channel lost in the merger, such as the all-punk channel to keep that particular niche satisfied.

I'm serious about combining Hair Nation and Boneyard. In addition to the other channels I listen to (several country channels, Octane, The Virus, NFL Radio), I'm often flipping between the Boneyard and Hair Nation. Boneyard plays a lot of stuff they don't play on Hair Nation, but they both play a lot of the same songs from Dokken, Guns N' Roses, Kiss, The Scorpions, Great White, Whitesnake, Aerosmith and so on. The main difference is that the Boneyard goes further back into these bands' catalogs than Hair Nation.

Even if we can't eliminate Hair Nation and simply combine the playlist with that of the current Boneyard, or give me back my old Boneyard, let's at least expand the artist roster of the Boneyard. I was home sick a good portion of the weekend, and spent a lot of time listening to the channel, and heard an inordinate amount of the same bands over and over again...Though they may be core artists, there is more to hard rock and classic metal than Rush, AC/DC, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden. I listened for several hours and heard at least one track from each of these bands every hour and a half to two hours. After having had AC/DC radio on the platform for four months, too much AC/DC in particular is being played.

Who would I like to hear more of, or hear at all? That's easy.

• More UFO. I've heard the same couple songs from this band multiple times. They have several albums out. Get anything with Michael Schenker or Paul Chapman, and play those.
  
• Thin Lizzy: Maybe I've missed it, but I've heard no Thin Lizzy at all. The Boneyard of the past used to play tons of great tracks from these guys, and not just "The Boys are Back In Town" or "Jailbreak". There's plenty of material to choose from.
  
• More Rainbow. Again, other than Eddie Trunk's show, we don't hear enough of these guys.
  
• More Michael Schenker/MSG.
  
• Riot: Particularly material off the Restless Breed, although any of that early stuff is fine.
  

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Also, make it easier for your listeners to get in touch with you. When the channel was strictly on XM, the phone number, email, and MySpace address were constantly given out. Interaction is a huge part of satellite radio. We pay at least $12.95 a month for this service, and that's if we haven't added a "best of" package, or don't have more than one radio. Keep the listeners happy; make it easy for us to get in touch at leave requests.

Next, bring back the deeper cuts. Right now, both stations sound pretty much like Z-Rock did back in 1990. Z-Rock was cool back in 1990, but The Boneyard was cooler from the day I signed up for XM in May of 2004 until November 11 of 2008, mixing the radio hits with the deeper album cuts we hadn't heard in a while. Many times, I'd hear a song on The Boneyard and either dig out a CD I hadn't played in years or jump online and order a copy after hearing some forgotten gem from junior high or high school.

Next, let's mix up the DJ line-up a bit. Lou, Matt, and Kane are fine, but seven days a week? It's obvious they're voice-tracked, which is fine...But let's have a bit a variety, and let's add some more day parts. Maybe some different guys or gals on weekends. Let's also bring back some more specialty shows such as Breaking Bone, which is listed at 30 minutes. Bring back Bone Phones, the all-request show. Bring back the shredder show (can't remember what it was called). Maybe add a replay for Eddie Trunk's show.

Again, these are just some thoughts from a die-hard fan. I'm sure the casual listener thinks the station sounds just fine and doesn't need any work, but to those of us who remember what it was even a couple months ago, it's fallen considerably.

In closing, as I type this, I'm listening to The Boneyard on my XM receiver, and they're playing the same Iron Maiden song they were playing at about this time Sunday night, "Two Minutes to Midnight". Just goes to show how much the playlist has narrowed. I love the song, but come on...Let's broaden it a bit.