Sirius really is working hard to piss their customers off.... I'm about to give up

[aphex]

http://siriusbuzz.com/sirius-x...-another-rate-hike.php

Here we go again, it has only been a few months since the March 11th rate hikes that drove subscribers into a frenzy and already Sirius XM is announcing another rate increase for their subscribers. This time around Sirius XM is laying blame to the ever increasing Music Royalty Fee.

In a recently created memo posted on the XM website the company notes that, effective July 29, 2009, a U.S. Music Royalty Fee will be added to subscriber invoices. The fee is slated at $1.98 a month on their base subscriptions ($12.95) and $.97 for base plans that are eligible for a second radio discount.

I've been a Sirius customer and Stern Fan for years now, but coupled with the fact that the Sirius iPhone App was released today without Stern (and some other notable channels) and another rate hike (2nd in a year), I think it might be time to let my subscription lapse when it runs up later this year.

I started with Sirius back around 2003, when the prospect of getting commercial free radio in your car and out and about was fairly limited. Over the years I grew to love the diversity of the stations and eventually became an avid Stern fan (the local radio market down here sucks).

Times have changed though, with the availability of so many other mediums of free commercial-free sources of music everywhere, the appeal of Sirius has slowly diminished in my eyes. The only thing that kept me subscribing was Stern. Sadly, I think this might be the end of the road for me and Sirius. They already raised the rates on the 2nd subscription $2/mo earlier this year, then tacked on another $3/mo for the internet feed. Now another $2/mo in royalty recovery? Screw that.

 

[Slick5150]

I dumped Sirius when they got rid of the punk channel and buzzsaw last year. That was enough for me at that point. Plus with the Pandora app for my Palm Pre, I haven't looked back.

 

[aircooled]

As much as I dislike the increase, I'm still willing to pay the extra $2 a month. I cannot stand terrestrial radio during my drive times.
I've had XM since it's inception and I always knew the price would go up.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

I've had XM since it first came out as well, but the reduction in service, and increase in rates, has be about ready to just dump it. I've got an unlimited cell data plan and could just use Pandora.

Put commercials on the music channels? Make me pay for Internet radio service? Increasing my rate AGAIN? Bout to tell them to rim my shitter.

 

[ultimatebob]

Didn't Sirius promise that they wouldn't increase their monthly rates for 18 months or so after their merger with XM completed, or something similar to that? I hope that someone can dig up that quote from their CEO, which I'm pretty sure was said back in 2007 when they were just starting to get the merger approved by the feds.

Funny... I also remember saying how they were going to raise their fees like crazy once they became a satellite radio monopoly, but all of the die hard capitalists here kept saying they wouldn't because they're getting too much competition from terrestrial radio and iPod's. Heh.

 

[kranky]

I think they are just trying to find out how many people will stay on no matter what the cost just to listen to Howard Stern. They are losing money and subscribers like crazy. Their stock is down 95% since Stern came aboard, and they are on pace to have a net loss of 9% of their subscribers this year alone.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones
I've had XM since it first came out as well, but the reduction in service, and increase in rates, has be about ready to just dump it. I've got an unlimited cell data plan and could just use Pandora.

Put commercials on the music channels? Make me pay for Internet radio service? Increasing my rate AGAIN? Bout to tell them to rim my shitter.

Sadly, Pandora would be practically useless if you were taking a road trip through the country. There are many parts on the interstate that have no cell coverage at all, let alone the stable EDGE or 3G data coverage needed to keep Pandora running.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: aphex
I've been a Sirius customer and Stern Fan for years now, but coupled with the fact that the Sirius iPhone App was released today without Stern (and some other notable channels) and another rate hike (2nd in a year), I think it might be time to let my subscription lapse when it runs up later this year.

It's a decent bet that they were concerned Apple's fear of any swears in an iPhone app would keep it out of the App Store if Howard Stern were included. So you can probably blame Apple for that one.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: Aluvus

Originally posted by: aphex
I've been a Sirius customer and Stern Fan for years now, but coupled with the fact that the Sirius iPhone App was released today without Stern (and some other notable channels) and another rate hike (2nd in a year), I think it might be time to let my subscription lapse when it runs up later this year.

It's a decent bet that they were concerned Apple's fear of any swears in an iPhone app would keep it out of the App Store if Howard Stern were included. So you can probably blame Apple for that one.

They should just make the Howard Stern show a podcast, and let their iPhone using customers buy it from iTunes. What do you think they could get for that... a $1.29 an episode?

Hell... it would probably be the only popular podcast on iTunes that anyone paid for... just one more thing for Howard to gloat about!

 

[BUTCH1]

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones
I've had XM since it first came out as well, but the reduction in service, and increase in rates, has be about ready to just dump it. I've got an unlimited cell data plan and could just use Pandora.

Put commercials on the music channels? Make me pay for Internet radio service? Increasing my rate AGAIN? Bout to tell them to rim my shitter.

Good points but you forgot a big one, craptasitic bit rate, even in my stock GM sound system the entire mid range is flanged and crappy, bass has poor definition and an overall "gnawing" quality from over compression, I'm about ready to dump it as well..

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: BUTCH1

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones
I've had XM since it first came out as well, but the reduction in service, and increase in rates, has be about ready to just dump it. I've got an unlimited cell data plan and could just use Pandora.

Put commercials on the music channels? Make me pay for Internet radio service? Increasing my rate AGAIN? Bout to tell them to rim my shitter.

Good points but you forgot a big one, craptasitic bit rate, even in my stock GM sound system the entire mid range is flanged and crappy, bass has poor definition and an overall "gnawing" quality from over compression, I'm about ready to dump it as well..

I honestly only listen to the comedy channels, and some of the news ones, so compression isn't really an issue on those. Was just miffed that no-commercials was one of their big selling points way back when.

It's still not as bad as terrestrial radio, but getting close...

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones
I've had XM since it first came out as well, but the reduction in service, and increase in rates, has be about ready to just dump it. I've got an unlimited cell data plan and could just use Pandora.

Put commercials on the music channels? Make me pay for Internet radio service? Increasing my rate AGAIN? Bout to tell them to rim my shitter.

Sadly, Pandora would be practically useless if you were taking a road trip through the country. There are many parts on the interstate that have no cell coverage at all, let alone the stable EDGE or 3G data coverage needed to keep Pandora running.

True

 

[LS21]

why dont you guys just pirate 100gb of mp3s and hook it to your car player? for the first time ever , ever , ever listening to satellite radio (on rentals), i enjoyed channel #pop2k... but still vastly prefer using personal player

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: LS21
why dont you guys just pirate 100gb of mp3s and hook it to your car player? for the first time ever , ever , ever listening to satellite radio (on rentals), i enjoyed channel #pop2k... but still vastly prefer using personal player

Zunepass FTW.

 

[BUTCH1]

Originally posted by: LS21
why dont you guys just pirate 100gb of mp3s and hook it to your car player? for the first time ever , ever , ever listening to satellite radio (on rentals), i enjoyed channel #pop2k... but still vastly prefer using personal player

Good idea but sadly my car has no f-ing provision for hooking anything into it, no aux jack, no ipod port no USB port, nutting..Only option is to pay $185 for an adapter that will let you install aftermarket and even then you lose some of the DIC functions, stupid GM..

 

[13Gigatons]

I'm baffled by Sirius selling point. Free radio for years and then suddenly I need to actually pay for it?

Also it would seem only traveling salesmen would need it since most people live and work in the same city.

One last point would be podcast that you can download and play on an mp3 player which allows playback anywhere and anytime.

 

[Soccer55]

Originally posted by: BUTCH1

Originally posted by: LS21
why dont you guys just pirate 100gb of mp3s and hook it to your car player? for the first time ever , ever , ever listening to satellite radio (on rentals), i enjoyed channel #pop2k... but still vastly prefer using personal player

Good idea but sadly my car has no f-ing provision for hooking anything into it, no aux jack, no ipod port no USB port, nutting..Only option is to pay $185 for an adapter that will let you install aftermarket and even then you lose some of the DIC functions, stupid GM..

What about FM transmitters? I have this one for my Zune and IMO, it works well. I'm sure that there is a number of companies that make them for iPods.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
I'm baffled by Sirius selling point. Free radio for years and then suddenly I need to actually pay for it?

Also it would seem only traveling salesmen would need it since most people live and work in the same city.

One last point would be podcast that you can download and play on an mp3 player which allows playback anywhere and anytime.

Same concept as cable television really. A much more focused channel lineup, premium content without censoring, and a virtually endless vault of music. Plus for sports fans it was a hit because of the game coverages.

I subscribed to Sirius when it first came out. It was a very unique product with a channel linuep that was very pointed and with little overlap. It slowly started to errode away and a lot of the channels started overlapping playlists, song repeats started getting more an more frequent, and the depths of playlists seemed to get shallower.

When I got a car with built in XM I opted for that hoping the sound quality would be a little better. Boy was I wrong. XM has compressed their channels into oblivion. A 128kbs MP3 sounds like high fidelity compared to the crap they were pumping out. Plus their channel lines were even worse than Sirius.

A good idea gone bad.

 

[Quasmo]

Just buy the lifetime subscription.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: aircooled
As much as I dislike the increase, I'm still willing to pay the extra $2 a month. I cannot stand terrestrial radio during my drive times.
I've had XM since it's inception and I always knew the price would go up.

i cant find what i want on it anymore. a couple of years ago me and my brother had some favorite channels that got trashed without warning, and we ditched XM as soon as it happened.

i just get music from him and use my mp3 player, i never turn on the radio.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Originally posted by: LS21
why dont you guys just pirate 100gb of mp3s and hook it to your car player? for the first time ever , ever , ever listening to satellite radio (on rentals), i enjoyed channel #pop2k... but still vastly prefer using personal player

You mentioned the P word.

Tut tut!

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I thought Sirius was on the slippery slope to bankruptcy anyway?

 

[xboxist]

If I have zero interest in listening to Stern, and I want to subscribe, do they charge me like $6 instead of the $12 or whatever? I feel like these hikes are caused solely by Stern and I don't give a shit about him or his show.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: Quasmo
Just buy the lifetime subscription.

"Lifetime" only applies to 3 radios.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones

Originally posted by: Quasmo
Just buy the lifetime subscription.

"Lifetime" only applies to 3 radios.

and that's a problem?

 

[jamesbond007]

Well this will end my subscription with SIRIUS all together. I had been on the fence about quitting anyways, now that summer is here. The immense trees that line our residential neighborhoods wreak havoc with satellite reception. Nothing like driving home listening to blips and short pieces of music for the last 5 minutes of my drive.