SIRIUS still sucks
November 12, 2008 at 8:40 pm 7 comments
Back in March, I wrote a blog posting titled SIRIUS sucks where I laid bare my gripes about the SIRIUS satellite radio service, which are many, and still quite applicable.
This morning, I heard by e-mail from DJ JC Simon, one of the mixshow jocks whose work aired on SIRIUS. I happened to notice JC’s e-mail before the one I received from SIRIUS announcing a new channel line-up, and his e-mail prompted me to go investigate what had changed.
The bottom line is that SIRIUS, following their recent merger with XM, finally got around to realigning their programming and eliminating a lot of duplication. Fair enough; it’s precisely this sort of consolidation that delivers value (in theory) to stockholders in a merger situation. Several XM channels have been eliminated and replaced by existing programming from SIRIUS, and some SIRIUS channels were cut in favor of programming originating from XM.
Of note to JC is what’s happened with dance. The Beat, SIRIUS’ primary mainstream dance channel, got the axe, being replaced with (what I feel to be the superior) BPM, a channel originating out of XM. Frankly, I’m not shedding any tears about The Beat’s elimination. While the mixshow content was good, the day-to-day radio programming was never satisfactory to me, and as I noted in my last posting, hosts like Mr. Seth made as much sense being a radio personality, as Tabasco sauce makes sense being used as frosting for a lemon cake.
While I feel badly for DJ JC Simon, and I sure don’t like opportunities for fellow DJs being eliminated, frankly, I was “over” SIRIUS a year ago, and nothing about the new channel line-up is likely to change my mind. While I’m apt to give a listen to BPM in the office at my day job, to see if it’s as good as I remember from listening to it on the net, chances are excellent I won’t bother for long.
What I think is the real next wave here is streaming Internet radio. Sure, Internet radio has been around for years. First, it was a free-for-all, with thousands of kids in their basement playing whatever they wanted to whoever would listen. Then came the onerous royalty requirements from SoundExchange, and things are still in an uproar. Internet radio may not yet have a financial model that makes sense in most cases, but I have tremendous faith that it’ll all be sorted out, and that Internet radio is really the Next Big Thing (even as it seems old hat to many of us).
But who wants to be tethered to their PCs? You don’t have to be. I listen to streaming Internet radio on my BlackBerry every day. In my car. At the office. At home. At the gym. Sure, unlike SIRIUS I can’t listen to streams on my BlackBerry while tooling down I-70 in the middle of Kansas, but I have an iPod for that. iPhone users have the same capability, and the software to do it is free. That’s why we’re emphasizing this mode of listening at iDanceRadio.fm, the fledgling online radio station I’m a part of.
Honestly, I think THAT is where the future is headed. In another couple of years, G3 (or G4 or WiMax or whatever) mobile broadband is going to be so widespread that I probably will be able to listen to iDanceRadio.fm in the middle of Kansas.
So who really needs SIRIUS anyway? Not me, and frankly, I don’t want it.
Entry filed under: Dance Music Industry, DJ Wesley Personal. Tags: BlackBerry, DJ JC Simon, iDanceRadio.fm, iPhone, iPod, SIRIUS, SoundExchange, The Beat 36, WiMax, XM.
1.
erik | November 12, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Sirius axed Boombox – the most serious of their recent crimes. Also, the Disorder station got nixed. All this without, presumably, and customer input. A customer of 8 years considering cancellation.
2.
DJ Wesley | November 13, 2008 at 12:05 am
Erik, yeah… Me too, honestly.
I mean, I understand why this was done. I really do. And format changes, even in terrestrial radio, upset fans of what existed prior to the change. I get that too.
But the reality is, as I said in my post (re: Internet radio), as consumers, we have choices too, and they include moving-on to other technologies (like streaming radio) or just reverting back to our iPods.
While I love my iPods (all three of them) and use the music player capabilities of my BlackBerry too, I still enjoy radio because it introduces me to new music I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. So I’ll still listen. It’s just not on AM, FM, XM, or SIRIUS.
3.
JC Simon | November 13, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Hi Wesley,
Thanks for letting me know about your blog and for being candid in your assessment. One thing that should be noted however, which you might not have been aware of. 36 The Beat and BPM were never a completely competing format. That is, The Beat went after a partially different style and genre of dance music that XM never did. Pretty much anything mainstream club making it’s rounds through the Greek, Euro, French and German dance music charts- made it’s way into 36 The Beat.
BPM is more club focused on it’s style of music and will sadly never touch completely into this format, although they have bene known to lend spins to Kim Leoni, Cascada, Basshunter and several others that fall into that category.
The sad and bottom line is this. No matter who had superior programming or structure behind their individually unique formats, this is a loss to the listeners across the board. Dance music in the USA is the hardest genre to break a new artist into the market. Loosing one of two more liberal outlets in satellite radio, has just resulted in less artists ever being known, a more broad spectrum of dance music getting it’s way into spins and overall, the loss of more variety and quality programming to us the listeners…and us the DJ’s who purvey the music.
Thanks again,
JC Simon
4.
Sterney | November 14, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I hate BPM. Bring back The Beat!!!
5.
BostonSmitty | November 16, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I also loved sirius when I first got it. I’m on the verge of cancelling my subscription since the elimination of 2 of the 3 channels I spent most of my day listening to. (Punk, and Moving Easy – yeah, I know, schizo.
)
The only thing keeping me going right now is the probably vain hope that there’ll be more changes soon that will fill the gaps. (No, Sirius… Faction isn’t what I want.)
Anyway, just want to say thanks for the blog. It makes it a little easier knowing I’m not the only one who’s become disenchanted with something I used to love so much.
6.
The Edge | November 22, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I was an XM sub about two or more years ago. Although I listened primarily for O&A I would listen to a lot of other stations during the day. What I couldn’t stand about XM was the poor quality of music selection. That was the deciding factor in moving over to Sirius; boy was that the best move (back then). What I have noticed since the merger and consolidation of “stations” is that I am starting to notice the same poor programming that drove me crazy when I was with XM. When you switch from one station to another and you see the same exact song being played or you see a Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC or Elvis songs being played on another station when those artists have their own dedicated station it makes you wonder why pay for this c**p. Although I’m not an industry insider my guess is that the least popular piece in an artist library cost considerably less in terms of royalties then the more well known tune; some of the songs that I’ve been hearing must not be costing Sirius/XM much at all. I know some people didn’t like the music from Sirius about a year ago, but I have to say it was really good for a while. Now it just bites. I can’t wait to be able to stream across my phone and get rid of these hacks. Let them disappear in to obscurity for not listing to their customers.
7.
mike | December 2, 2008 at 8:52 am
I hate bpm so much. I have been calling and emailing the folks at sirius to bring The Beat back! bpm just sucks. You can’t listen to it for more than 3 minutes. bpm is just playing over zealous dj music anyway. If it wasn’t for Stern, I would have cancelled my subscription on 11/13/08.