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.