Pluses and minuses of Sirius' changes with the merger

Bandit 5160

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Oct 31, 2008
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PLUSES:
1) The Canadian music channels are still there. I'd rather have the uniqueness of Iceberg and CBC Radio 3 than the Clear Channel stuff that has material similar to things we already have...with commercials.
2) WE FINALLY HAVE AN ALL 90s CHANNEL! IT'S ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!
3) I like the additions of the 40s channel and Pop 2K.
4) The Beat was terrible...nice to see it replaced with BPM.
5) Overall, in dupicate channels situations, the best channel normally survived...with one BIG exception (see below).
6) They were smart enough to keep the MTV VJs on the 80s channel.
7) We now have the Books channel on Sirius (Sonic Theater I think it is called).
8) I'm glad Sirius Hits 1 was kept istead on replacing it with 20 on 20. 20 on 20 plays the same songs ad nauseum.

MINUSES:
1) What happened to Classic Dance and Old Skool Hip-Hop? It is an absolute abomination that theses genres were just totally eliminated. Even if you don't like this type of music, you have to admit that this is content that should have a place on satellite radio.
2) Why do we still need The Pulse? We already have 90s on 9, Pop 2K, and Hits 1. The Blend is also similar to The Pulse. Why not free up some bandwidth for a Classic Dance or Old School Hip-Hop Channel, or bring back a punk channel.
3) All those darn single artist channels survived the merger to take up bandwidth. I know AC/DC radio and Led Zepplin Radio are temporary, but we just don't need to have channels devoted to just one band/artist! Elvis, I can kind of understand. He was the King of Rock N' Roll, and he made oodles of music. But I don't understand keeping E-Street Radio, and I really wish they'd just play Greatful Dead stuff on Jam-ON and get rid of their exdclusive channel for something better.
4) Why do we have both Coffee House and The Loft...aren't they the same? (acoustic rock by singer-songwriters.
5) Punk was not brought back. Again, even if you don't like this music personally, it has its place on sat. radio.
6) Why in the hell was Lithium kept over Lucy? Lithium sucks! Lucy was much better. They could have kept the Lithium name if they had just programmed it like Lucy was, but that's not happening either. A glaringly bad choice.
 
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JDawg3DX

New Member
Oct 16, 2008
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The biggest minus I have (outside of what you mentioned about Backspin/Strobe) is Hip Hop Nation is playing alot more censored music..Its a minus and admittedly a concern, however, I'll live with it since my time on the music channels is few and far between (I'm on Howard 101 more than any other channel)
 

Wolf

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Oct 11, 2008
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my minuses:

Moving EZ
Missing song years on the decades channels.

From what someone said in another thread, the decades channels should have the years in a few weeks...The poster said something about hearing one of the DJs on the 70s station say that...

My parents are bit mad that Movin' Easy is now gone, but they will have to get use to Escape.

I listen to couple of the decades channels today and I saw some years next to the songs on the 70's and 80's channel.
 

Wolf

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I haven't seen one.

I just found one and here a pic of the year next to the song on the 70's on 7 channel.

years.jpg
 

Troglodyte

Member
Nov 11, 2008
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Well the biggest plus is if you are in the desired demographic you get to keep your stations and gain more because it's the music you like and you continue to be a valued customer. Everyone else can fuck off.......
 

TX WJ

Intelligent Donkey
Oct 15, 2008
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The Loft and Coffehouse are different, they are right next to each other on Sirius, I can tell which one I am listening to without looking at the radio.
 

escapecar

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Nov 10, 2008
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3) All those darn single artist channels survived the merger to take up bandwidth. I know AC/DC radio and Led Zepplin Radio are temporary, but we just don't need to have channels devoted to just one band/artist! Elvis, I can kind of understand. He was the King of Rock N' Roll, and he made oodles of music. But I don't understand keeping E-Street Radio, and I really wish they'd just play Greatful Dead stuff on Jam-ON and get rid of their exdclusive channel for something better.


Single-artist channels (other than Elvis, which is something Sirius uses to sell subs to people touring Graceland) are not an artistic decision. They are a financial decision. The record companies are paying for them.

Sony, apparently, is willing to pay a lot to promote Springsteen. Given how much they're paying him, they probably need to boost sales any way they can.
 

ejbove

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Nov 12, 2008
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New Order with no Disorder?

I just don't understand why Disorder was removed. There is clearly no equivolent channel. The Loft is very different focusing on singer songwriters, mostly folk and rock. There is no freeform station at this point. It seems that many of the rock formats are nearly identical. What for example is on spectrum that can't be found on The Loft or Deep Cuts. And the loss of talent, Meg Griffin, Larry Kirwin, and Lou Reed in particlar is great. Vin Skelsa is supposed to be on the Loft but was not on today. The method of doing the change with no pre-publicity is extremely inconsiderate. I an considering not renewing my subscription.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
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I just found one and here a pic of the year next to the song on the 70's on 7 channel.

years.jpg

I saw them on the 70s last night too. I think they are prevalent on the 70s and not the 80s. I would guess the 80s is coming out of DC while the 70s is coming out of NY.
 

Manco

Active Member
Oct 14, 2008
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2) Why do we still need The Pulse? We already have 90s on 9, Pop 2K, and Hits 1. The Blend is also similar to The Pulse. Why not free up some bandwidth for a Classic Dance or Old School Hip-Hop Channel, or bring back a punk channel.

You must not listen to the Blend or the Pulse because it is in no way close to the Pulse. I could see how you might get that impression if you just quickly jumped to it since they might share some songs in common. But they "blend" 4 decades of music into one channel. That is quite different from the Pulse which is 2 decades.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
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You must not listen to the Blend or the Pulse because it is in no way close to the Pulse. I could see how you might get that impression if you just quickly jumped to it since they might share some songs in common. But they "blend" 4 decades of music into one channel. That is quite different from the Pulse which is 2 decades.


Why do we need the blending of just those 2 decades?
 

Manco

Active Member
Oct 14, 2008
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Why do we need the blending of just those 2 decades?

You don't need to, but it's a different format. The Blend and The Pulse are both legitimate formats, I'm just objecting to the idea that someone thinks they are duplicates and people that like one will be perfectly happy with the other. This is just not the case.
 

v1ru5

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Oct 24, 2008
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Eliminating channels from the R&B/Hip-Hop genre is a common practice of Sirius. About 1 1/2 years Sirius dropped an urban channel only to replace it with a Rock channel. That's when I left Sirius and came to XM and now they've done it again. Someone should have fought the decision to remove The Rhyme/Backspin.
 

dart74

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Nov 10, 2008
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why are all the channels edited, beside faction, shade 45, Howard and the comedy channels. that my BIG ----