davidspalding

Just for flatulence and jocularity this morning, I switched to XM in my car and spun the tuning knob. Seems 6-10 channels are coming through ... 80s on 8, Elvis on 18, Holly on 35, Prime Country (I think), etc.

I've seen this before, done without notice (which is silly). YMMV.

godfather2

sweet! thanks for the heads up (i miss xm)

jswim99

The lack of notice is very silly and representative of the company leadership's cluelessness; I think Sirius-XM's days are very numbered. Don't prepay for service!

1slwTSX

So far I been getting free XM. I dont know if the previous owner of the car cancelled it or not but its been a month and still getting all the channels.

davidspalding

1slwTSX:
IF you bought it from a dealer, then you probably have a free trial in progress.

If you bought from a private party, yep, they may not've cancelled again, or don't realize it's on auto-renewal ad infinitum.

jswim99:
Well, I prepay for my Pioneer INNO so that I can listen all the time, timeshift things I like, etc. Not sure it's worth $77 a year to listen in my car for an hour a day. Local NPR and non-profit jazz and university stations (NC State, UNC, Duke) provide more than enough drivetime content.

SirBLaughs

iTrader: (1)

Why didn't Acura put Sat radio on 03-04's? bastids!!!!

1slwTSX

I bought mine from a Nissan dealership. The guy traded the TSX in for a 350z. The XM stations has been working since the day the guy traded it in. I dont think its the free trial thing. Im thinking he hasnt cancelled it.

jswim99

What's INNO? Is that XM/Sirius? I was just implying that these guys could go out of business, and if you prepay you'll lose your money. I used satellite radio for about a year and decided I'd rather spend my money on an iPod adapter and free NPR.

davidspalding

Google is your friend.

1Louder

For those of you without XM, they are currently running a merged format between the Sirius channels and XM. If you go to xmradio.com you can see the channel guide. It's great - I used Sirius in my former car and prefer the line up. Not 100% sure how long this will last - thought I recall a DJ saying it would be through Jan. Probably setting us up for when we'll have to pay extra to get Sirius on XM.

nj2pa2nc

Maybe they got the $77.00 a yr deal and found out it was cheaper not to cancel it-(let it run out)

davidspalding

That would be seriously bad news for them if someone wanted to cancel a year's subscription, and was told, "Well, now we convert your account to quarterly auto-renewal, and so ... you owe us $45 over the $77 you paid, for the partial year you've used." Yeah, that would bad. I can't imagine anyone doing that. No company would be so stupid. ... Would they?

1slwTSX

Yea really not sure what the situation is but im sure enjoying me some free XM!

ak3883

All the sites I have read, the XM owners(including myself) were not happy about the changes they made last month. They changed more than the names on many channels, they changed songs/genres a bit on many of the channels. Some formats/genres were lost.

I liked XM the way it was, they basically whorred the lineup to Sirrius.

SirBLaughs

iTrader: (1)

I have a loaner car with Sat radio. There are almost 200+ channels including all the sports and weather, news stations.

I love it i dont mind being in traffic when you have a sea of entertainment at your fingers. Mad Dog sports, Chris Russo, Howard Stern? good radio.

davidspalding

Channels have changed (some) since I posted. So clearly they're playing "the entice" song.

I agree, Ak, I'm a little miffed at some that went away, and the replacements from Sirius. But ... NPR lets me record "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" every Saturday on my Inno. Good times.

davidspalding

Talk about a bunch of grinches.

I've been enjoying the three (count 'em, three) holiday channels on my Inno, one of which (36) was part of the free preview. This morning,... ahem, CHRISTMAS EVE, the preview is over, only 000, 001, and 247 work in my car.

Thanks, XM. Pulling the plug on a preview of holiday music channels AFTER 12/25 would've been just waaaay too generous a marketing ploy. Schmucks.

jswim99

Like I said, XM-Sirius' days are numbered. Looks like they'll be filing for bankruptcy soon.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...%7D&dist=msr_1

Again, probably not wise to prepay at this point. While it's likely they'll honor prepayments during chapter 11, they may not be required to. Obviously if they completely shut down, you'd be hosed, too.

As an aside, I recently had a loaner TL with XM-Sirius; I found myself flipping stations quite a bit--I'm used to having my favorite music all on the iPod. Then again, I probably needed to listen longer to find my favorite stations.

moda_way

^^Filing for bankruptcy protection is merely an opportunity for someone to buy them up if they can stomach the debt. What I see being of issue is the promises made by Mel Karmazin on pricing and offerings. I was rather looking forward to seeing Sat. TV in my 09 Pilot. With only 3 channels right now, wasn't worth the cost to modify.

davidspalding

Chap. 11 also lets you do things like layoffs and divestiture (iirc) with court protection. It's a way to do structured reduction. It can sometimes work ... sometimes not (Circuit City).

I just bought a $40 Delphi repeater so that I can listen in my living room (wish I'd known about the repeater months ago), so I'll be getting my money's worth. I'm confident that they'll be on the air through the end of my prepaid term.

racecarbox616

So on a different note, if the XM-Sirius goes goes bankrupt, what will happen to our service?

nj2pa2nc

The previous owner might have bought the service for a year and found out it was cheaper in the long run not to cancel. Just let it run out and not renew it. (expecially if they got it for the $77.00 special)

davidspalding

Don't lose sleep about it. Someone is already circling the fort, ready to buy the whole operation on the cheap.

jswim99

Yeah, it looks like Echostar (the Dish Network) wants them. Everything will probably work out just fine, but the reason XM-Sirius is in so much trouble is that they borrowed extremely heavily in anticipation of massive subscriber additions. Their business model is not solvent/viable, particularly with the slowdown in auto purchases and general recession. Many people will be looking to cut monthly services, even if it is only $7 a month. I'm not trying to make people feel dumb for paying early, just want to inform people to help their decision. Does XM-Sirius still offer the "lifetime" plan? Now that would be foolish to purchase.

davidspalding

The last time I talked to them, I laughed at their Lifetime Plan. It was for the lifetime ... of up to three receivers. So if you subscribed your Pioneer Inno, then your car, then your MP3toGo (or whatever the new Pioneer is called), that's it you're on your last receiver. I can't imagine they sell too many of those.

I think the massive marketing, plus licensing fees for sports 'n Stern, then more massive marketing around those properties, is what got them so far in the red.

davidspalding

Woah, I guess I missed that opportunity....

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/02/1...-mel-karmazin/

If business as usual at Sirius XM, could spell trouble next year.

JAR0023

This. Everyone I know who had Sirius pre-merger is happy. Everyone I know who had XM pre-merger is unhappy. I can't stand Sirius and their DJ's constantly yapping. I just want the music. They dropped the one channel I listened to 80% of the time.

J