Sirius XM Holdings will pay almost 41% more for the music it plays on its satellite radio network, after a decision by the federal Copyright Royalty Board earlier this month.

Currently, Sirius pays about 11% of its gross revenue (of more than $5 billion) to SoundExchange, which distributes music royalties to repertoire artists and labels (usually in a 50/50 split).

Starting in 2018, that jumps to 15.5%, which Sirius will no doubt pass onto its 27 million revenue subscribers (another 5 million get it free through new car promotions and the like).

With the declining quality of the music stream (sometimes as low as 48 kbps), too many stations sharing the bandwidth, extreme dynamic compression that even Helen Keller would complain about, and way too much country music and religious crap, this may be the final trigger to end my subscription after 15 years.

 

Interesting. I mostly use it for talk radio (sports), but even that I think I could live without. So I'll just call them at expiration and see if they will offer ~$6 a month for a basic package (sports talk and 70's on 7 really). If not, I'll cancel.

 

Never liked or cared for XM Radio. Only listen to 96.7 am / 1310 fm The Ticket - best sports talk radio ever. And it's local.

That and music from my USB stick.

 

I expect to pay exactly the same.

 

A price increase? You can't be Sirius?

 

They should really go ala carte. If they did I'd subscribe. If they don't they'll eventually suffer the same fate as cable companies. Not that cable companies are doing horribly, but there are enough cord cutters out there to affect their bottom lines for sure.

 

I like our Sirius but the more and more I'm driving, the more and more you notice they loop the same songs over and over. And it's not just one station that's guilty... they all do it. It's still OK for me now, but if they raise rates I'll cancel for sure and just listen to the same songs over and over on the free radio or just stream Pandora...

 

Just locked in SXM for a year for $6 a month. Thanks for the heads up!

 

^ Yeah, I think we're locked in until next summer, so not something I'll need to worry about for a while...

 

Meh, I listen when it's free a couple times a year, but I have a USB drive with a couple thousand songs on it. Or stream via my phone.

 

I signed up for the free 60-Day trial subscription back in October just as I was setting out on a 3,000 mile road trip. During the trip I noticed the loop of the same songs over and over and over, and have since listened to the satellite radio only once, and wouldn't you know it; the same damn songs came up.

Long story short, I will not be signing up for a paid subscription.

 

The sound quality of XM is crap anyways. I get better sound quality (which is still not that great) from my music apps (Amazon Music, Samsung Music, SoundHound) through Bluetooth no less. How is that even possible? XM has so much against it.

• Poor sound quality
• Songs repeat way too often
• Too many stations that most people won't listen to
• Priced wrong - at <$10 (and I don't mean $9.99) it may be a better value proposition. Say $5 - $7.
• Too much competition in the streaming music space, especially when I can go to iHeart or others for free.

I'm not sure how they survive. They used to send me "please come back" notifications by mail 2-3x a week when my trial was over. I can't imagine what that costs. I also would receive calls constantly, even after I told them, "give it to me for free and I might use it". I had to block the number.

Since XM bought Sirius they really "bought the farm". I suppose they have to make it work. Increasing the price is always the first answer to that question. It is not always the right one though.

edit: why is this thread in Car Talk?

 

Where else would you put it? It's not model-specific and many of us have Sirius-XM in our cars.

 

I signed up for the 60 day subscription as well. Gave it a good shot. There were a few decent channels that I liked. Mainly the only 70's, 80's and 90's. But considering the flash drive you can hook up in the 4G (with about 2000 songs) and the standard radio, it really wasn't that much better. I'm just planning on letting the free subscription expire. I still have about a month and a half but don't listen to it anymore despite it being free.

 

I will say, that one of the free trials was running during Hurricane Harvey. I had to make a run to Austin & it was nice to have, though we were just laughing at the comedy channels. Otherwise, it seems to have nearly as much commercials/DJ commentary as local FM radio.

 

Had it in the Explorer for 3 months when I got it. Never called to renew. I just usually have my Ipod in the car and listen to the music from that.

 

XM's primary medium is car audio systems. However, it can be used on your home computer / laptop and mobile devices as well. So the topic is not necessarily car specific. However, I get the context. Perhaps I'm being knit picky but I think this thread belongs in Ramblings.

 

I see your point. If it goes a more general direction, it can always be moved.

 

I had Sirius XM for years, mainly for the traffic data when I had an RL. The sound was so compressed it left a high pitched sensation in my ears (I am one of those people who can hear when a TV playing nothing is on). When I changed cars, I had to drop my subscription because the better speakers made it unbearable for me.

But I did have to drive a lot more back then and it was great getting reception everywhere. If they could fix the sound quality I'd probably use it.

 

I listen to Sirius XM every day in my car. I don't think the sound quality is bad at all. There isn't a huge different between the various audio inputs.

I do notice from time to time the same song coming up again (mostly morning commute versus evening commute), but I don't mind changing channels.

On that note, I do need to call and "cancel" to lower my price. Full price is way too high.

 

I believe Ford uses Sirius Travel Link for live traffic on the OE Nav. Luckily, it came with something like a 5 yr subscription for it, without needing a live Sirius music subscription.

If I'm doing anything more than local driving, though: Waze via AndroidAuto > *

 

Fortunately, you don't need the Sirius music subscription to get the NavTraffic feature. https://www.siriusxm.com/navtraffic/pricing My car came with 4 years free. I rarely use it but it might be worth keeping after the free period is over.

 

$6 here as well and while I hate calling every 6 months and dealing with them, I would miss Stern but not really willing to pay more.

 

I wish there was an option to not tell SXM when you buy a car equipped with a satellite receiver.

They are relentless with junk mail and telemarketing calls from spoofed numbers.

I hate their sales practices and will never give them a single penny.

 

It's not terrible for more local drives but when we head to the beach I actually have to rotate stations, otherwise I hear the same songs over and over. So say I'm on 90's on 9... I'll listen to that for like an hour, then the loop starts, so I switch to Hits 1 or something, listen for an hour.... and so on and so on.

Definitely not worth it for what they charge. We have a good deal now but once that expires next summer, I think we're going to cancel all 3 cars that have it. All of the vehicles have either a USB port or AUX port, so we can listen via other means for free...

 

I don't know if I am at the point where I want to cancel it just yet, but i have noticed a decline in quality recently. And to be honest, I wouldn't miss having to call up and verbally abuse 2-3 customer service reps to get the pricing I want once a year. I think if HD radio was more prominent in my area, it would be an easier decision.

 

I've been paying for a subscription for my mom and I for years at this point. It's useful for her since she isn't savvy enough to stream off of her phone and there have been plenty of times she goes to Pennsylvania to get my brother from college. Since she would lose local FM stations from being too far or get crappy reception through the mountains, and she likes the other channels since her EX35 doesn't have HD Radio, she's liked having it. I'll usually cycle through all my presets since the Q50 just shows all 36 available whenever you're on a radio source. Hope any increase would be pretty modest.

 

This is a better annual deal then I've seen or heard about. Was there a name of the package you signed up for? Any other details for how you got this deal?

 

NO. I think if you hang out on your preview channel, it offers you something similar. There are a bunch of reactivation incentives.

 

I do so much driving in areas where there isnt much for reception and i hate hafing to constantly seek channels that come in, and the channels you do get arent ones i would listen to even if i was paid to do so, so ill be keeping it around for a while.