Cancelling XM Radio
I think I’m going to turn off my XM-Radio service. I’ve kind of gotten tired of it, actually. It’s neat and all, but I’m not as excited about it as I was last year when I got it.
Satellite radio is a great idea. I had the idea of a space based radio station way back in 6th grade, but the XM and Sirius people have done a much better job than my idea. I had this wild notion of moving radio stations around to make room for one spot on the dial that I could broadcast to from all over. I never dreamed that people would shell out a hundred bucks to buy a special radio. Of course, CDs weren’t even out yet and no one really understood how cool it would be to be “digital.”
I got the radio just before taking several long road trips. Having some new tunes to listen to rather than my moldy CD collection or the MP3s I downloaded from the original Napster was a godsend, plus it was really funny to listen to an anti-religious alien episode Coast to Coast AM in the middle of Tennessee where the only thing you can pick up at night is Church Chat or The Savior Bible Show.
But XM has fallen short of a few promises. First, a lot of the music channels are repetitious. Yes, I realize that they aren’t making any new 80s music. But they are making new techo music and the one or two channels seem to play the same things over and over again. Many of the channels have commercials, even though that was supposed to be the big reason to get satellite radio in the first place.
I realize that a lot of the programming is syndicated from other sources and that there are commercials in the original feeds, but I know there are ways to replace that portion of the programming with something else.
Of course, when they brought in some new programming, they made them premium channels that you had to pay extra for. So much for “all you can eat radio.” The one channel I would pay money for, SpecialX, got cancelled. Discover Radio was also a good channel but is now off-the-air. They gave some lame excuse like “we have to make room for more channels.” BULLSHIT. The radio has 255 channel codes. Use them.
Finally, a lot of the channels are hard to hear in the car. The comedy channels are all mixed poorly and need to be normalized so you can hear the comedian without the audience blowing you out of your seat. In fact, the same thing goes to Coast-to-Coast. FUCKING MIX YOUR AUDIO, DUDES! It sure would be great if we hear the callers. Plus, some of the channels are over-compressed. The traffic reporters are hard to understand.
So, I’m replacing XM with Podcasting. Yeah, there’s not as much music on podcasts due to the licensing issues, but I can overlook that because the music that is there is totally original. There are a number of topical programs that are interesting and free. All those wonderful ideas about satellite radio breaking down censorship, everyone having their own show, etc. are being brought to us by podcasting.
Oh, and of course, XM Radio is largely owned by the evil Clear Channel Communications so cancelling my acount is a good way to stop funding their evil operations.
