-------------------- Gisel, I was looking at the picture page and I do have to admit, you look pretty good for a gaming female. Having said that, don't expect any sympathy when we meet on the battlefield. I am a fighter first, lover second. Posts: 2220 | From: Prescott, WI, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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No, Brad never renewed his (since his radio isn't working). But I had paid MINE IN FULL for a year. Idiots. The funny part is, we got the letter in the mail yesterday stating this. So they cut me off before even getting the letter. AT least I think it is all figured out right now.
-------------------- Clinton '08!!!! Posts: 211 | From: Shakopee, MN | Registered: Aug 2004
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Has anyone used Sirius? I am seriously cosidering canceling XM cuz they don't seem to know how to keep our account correct. When I called last month (because they shut off my radio) I thought he got it all straightened out. I remember him asking me if I wanted to renew the radios before Apr. 1 rates go up and I said NO (as Brad doesn't even have his radio hooked up right now). So we keep getting bills for hundreds of dollars. I call today, they reactived BOTH radios on a one year (mine still had 6 months left on it). I called and he couldn't help me so he transfered me and their computers were down so I have to call back! WTF???
-------------------- Clinton '08!!!! Posts: 211 | From: Shakopee, MN | Registered: Aug 2004
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You should try using the online account management - I haven't had any problems with that. I did have to call once and get the family plan correctly applied. I checked it online a day later and it was correct. Cancel Brad's radio completly. You can re-add it in the future at the $6.99 rate.
Since they moved the customer service to Canada I have heard it blows. As for a supervisor.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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I know its the liberal media but it would not kill you to register with the NYTimes.
April 5, 2005 Satellite Radio Takes Off, Altering the Airwaves By LORNE MANLY
Just a blink after the newly emergent titans of radio - Clear Channel Communications, Infinity Broadcasting and the like - were being accused of scrubbing diversity from radio and drowning listeners in wall-to-wall commercials, the new medium of satellite radio is fast emerging as an alternative. And broadcasters are fighting back.
The announcement on Friday by XM Satellite Radio - the bigger of the two satellite radio companies - that it added more than 540,000 subscribers from January through March pushed the industry's customer total past five million after fewer than three and a half years of operation. Analysts call that remarkable growth for companies charging more than $100 annually for a product that has been free for 80 years.
Total subscribers at XM and its competitor, Sirius Satellite Radio, will probably surpass eight million by the end of year, making satellite radio one of the fastest-growing technologies ever - faster, for example, than cellphones.
To keep that growth soaring, XM and Sirius are furiously signing up carmakers to offer satellite radio as a factory-installed option and are paying tens of millions of dollars for exclusive programming. On Sunday, XM began offering every locally broadcast regular-season and playoff Major League Baseball game to a national audience, having acquired the rights in a deal that could be worth up to $650 million over 11 years. And Howard Stern is getting $500 million over five years to leave Infinity and join Sirius next January. Each company offers 120 or more channels of music, news, sports and talk.
Though satellite radio is still an unprofitable blip in the radio universe, it is pushing commercial radio to change its sound. Broadcasters are cutting commercials, adding hundreds of songs to once-rigid playlists, introducing new formats and beefing up their Internet offerings. A long-awaited move to digital radio could give existing stations as many as five signals each, with which they could introduce their own subscription services - but with a local flavor that satellite is hard pressed to match.
"At the end of the day, people want to hear what's going on in their local market," said Joel Hollander, chairman and chief executive of Infinity Broadcasting, owned by Viacom and the country's second-largest broadcaster behind Clear Channel. "People are emotionally involved with local radio."
That emotional connection - to music, personalities, information - has always translated into strong feelings about radio. Twenty-seven years ago, in "Radio, Radio," the singer Elvis Costello ranted about the medium's programming choices, singing that "the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools, tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel."
But such criticism pales beside the complaining unleashed by Washington's deregulation of radio, beginning in 1996. The loosening of ownership restrictions set off a frenzy of acquisitions, transforming what was essentially a mom-and-pop business into an industry dominated by a handful of giant broadcasters.
To satisfy Wall Street, station owners cut costs by combining station operations in a given market and pumping up the number of advertisements per hour; meanwhile, programming formats became narrower and more uniform. All these moves nearly doubled the industry's revenue in five years, but they also gave satellite radio its opening.
"In many cases, radio almost killed the golden goose by getting it to lay too many eggs," said Sean Butson, an analyst with Legg Mason. "If you're going to have a third of an hour of commercials, you're going to turn a lot of people off, and they're going to look for an alternative." (Legg Mason owns stock in XM.)
Founded in the early 1990's, XM and Sirius endured tough financial times while waiting for the Federal Communications Commission to divide up the satellite bandwidth and while preparing to launch their satellites. XM finally began offering its subscription service in late 2001, Sirius in mid-2002.
Car owners - the companies' prime targets - have clamored for the service once they have been introduced to it.
Joseph O'Neal of Royal Palm Beach, Fla., is a self-proclaimed Elvishead who laments that his local stations do not play enough of the King. So Mr. O'Neal, a 44-year-old drywall contractor, is a zealous convert to Sirius, the home of Elvis Radio.
Mr. O'Neal installed the service in his truck in January. Between Elvis, blues and Sirius's six country music channels, he said, "I haven't listened to regular radio since - not once."
That kind of devotion was eye-opening for Mel Karmazin, a longtime radio executive hired last year as chief executive of Sirius after he stepped down as president and chief operating officer of Viacom. "The thing that surprised me the most was the passion the subscribers had for the product," Mr. Karmazin said.
Both companies offer stations devoted to the most popular songs, but it is their national reach and dual revenue streams - subscriptions and advertising sales on nonmusic channels - that allow them to offer niche programming. Genres that receive little exposure on commercial radio, like bluegrass, reggae or talk devoted to African-American affairs, get their own channels on satellite services. Individual ratings matter little; listener satisfaction counts for much more, because it determines how long subscribers will keep paying $12.95 a month.
Indeed, formats ignored by commercial radio or relegated to its wee hours have emerged as some of the most popular.
For instance, XM Comedy, a channel that features the often raunchy stylings of Chris Rock and others, is among the company's 10 most-listened-to.
"Comedy - who knew?" said Hugh Panero, XM's chief executive.
A glimpse of how these channels are programmed highlights the differences between satellite and commercial radio. Even satellite radio executives say that tales of corporate automatons determining every record played on local radio are overblown, but a level of autonomy exists at XM and Sirius that would rarely be tolerated by broadcasters.
Michael Marrone, who programs the Loft, XM's channel focusing on singer-songwriters, finds it difficult to define precisely why Elton John's "Your Song" makes the cut while Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" does not. "I'd rather lose an arm than play it again," he said of "Margaritaville," chatting in a control room in the company's Washington headquarters. (He quickly added that he likes and plays many other tracks by Mr. Buffett.)
Ultimately, Mr. Marrone's tastes determine his selections. He also enjoys inserting connective tissue between songs. Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" segues into a Grateful Dead song because Mr. Henley sings about "a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac."
"Ninety-five percent of the audience won't get it," Mr. Marrone said. "The other 5 percent will never change the channel."
Steven Van Zandt, who plays in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and is in the cast of "The Sopranos," programs two music channels for Sirius. He supplies a slightly more detailed explanation of his programming philosophy. On "Underground Garage," which borrows the name and concept of Mr. Van Zandt's syndicated show on commercial radio, the idea is to juxtapose tracks and styles from 50 years of guitar-driven rock 'n' roll, never playing two songs of the same genre (like punk) in a row. A recent morning, Iggy Pop coexisted nicely with the Monkees, the Mooney Suzuki and the Byrds.
"In the end, I don't pretend," Mr. Van Zandt said. "It's my opinion. And it's good to be the king."
Satellite radio has ridden that unconventional thinking to its current size, and both XM and Sirius expect to begin making money in the next two years. How big the market can become remains debatable. By 2010, analysts estimate, subscriber levels will hover anywhere from 30 million to 45 million. Some think the totals could eventually rival or surpass the 90 million people who pay for cable and satellite television.
Still, satellite radio is also unlikely to inflict fatal damage on commercial radio, which has about 230 million listeners, according to Arbitron, the radio ratings provider. Profit margins for stations in big markets can surpass 50 percent.
But commercial radio has begun to change. Radio stations in the Top 10 markets played, on average, 11 minutes of commercials an hour during daytime broadcasts in February, down from 11.7 in October, when Leland Westerfield, a media analyst at Harris Nesbitt, began tracking spots.
Strict formats have also loosened a bit. Infinity, like a number of radio chains, has changed some of its stations to the "Jack" format, a Canadian import that broadens the play list across rock genres. Instead of 300 or so songs, these stations' program directors are allowed more leeway in choosing from more than 1,200 songs.
Commercial radio, which also is combating the growth of digital music players like iPods, is making investments in technologies like Internet and digital radio as well as podcasts, audio programs that can be downloaded to computers or portable devices.
But satellite radio is rushing to innovate, too. It is planning, for example, video services that would beam cartoons and music videos to children and teenagers watching television in the back seats of cars.
All this technological and corporate ferment promises that the battle between commercial and satellite radio will only intensify.
"This book won't be written for another 10 years," Mr. Hollander of Infinity said.
Posts: 2469 | From: Anchorage, AK | Registered: Oct 2001
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Not a bad article. Pretty fair to everyone. The only thing I don't agree with is the "local content" part. It might just be me but I could care less about local content. I haven't listened to 93X/KDWB in 2 years and don't miss it a bit. Who cares if Prince was seen walking down Henepin Ave on Friday......
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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Have to look again, but wasnt it a commercial radio rep that was talking about local content?
Posts: 2469 | From: Anchorage, AK | Registered: Oct 2001
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Yep, that's why I don't agree with that. I personally don't think it's an advantage, but I already have Sat radio. The local programmer might think that's a way to keep people from subscribing. Maybe that's the next commercials to come to commercial radio "don't go to sat. radio they have no local content"
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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I have grown tired of Joe Soucheray on 1500. Was entertaining for awhile but now it's pretty repetitive.
I just can't stand the last 20 minutes of each hour on commercial radio - breaks every 3 minutes. I have even limited my listening of Americas Right and ASK on XM (taken from AM stations) because of this. I did like Jason Lewis on 1500 until he left.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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It is possible to use your laptop three ways:
1) Use XM online now that it is free (if you have problems ask Joe he has it working good in Alaska)
2) You can stream the music over your network to another computer using the XMPCR, I did it at work. You use Windows Media Encoder to send it and Windows media player on your laptop to receive it. You can get the encoder on Microsoft's site. It is a bit tricky to change channels tho (because the player is on the computer with the XMPCR.
3) Wireless speakers - they go pretty far these days, maybe 30-50ft. Check out best buy they have some I think.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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How does the myfi work?? I know it has a cradle, but does it come with speakers or can you hook any speakers into it?? I am looking for something to put in my studio.
-------------------- Clinton '08!!!! Posts: 211 | From: Shakopee, MN | Registered: Aug 2004
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Do you have a stereo in your studio? Does it have RCA inputs?
I use my Roady2 at work, I just let it feed into the puter, then let the puter feed into the stereo RCA inputs. Computer sound, XM, AM, FM, CD all from my JVC shelf system on my desk.
Posts: 2331 | From: Rosemount | Registered: Mar 2001
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So could I buy the kind of speakers you plug into a computer and plug them into the myfi? They have a smaller plug in? Also, where does the signal come from again? I am worried it won't even work in my studio.
-------------------- Clinton '08!!!! Posts: 211 | From: Shakopee, MN | Registered: Aug 2004
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Yes, any computer speakers will work perfectly.
The signal comes from satelites
If you can't get reception in your studio the MyFi can record 5+ hours of music. So you can leave it in the cradle and have it scheduled to record overnight. Then take it with you to the studio and plug the computer speakers into the headphone jack (this is assuming you leave the cradle at home or in another part of your office) This is nice because you can skip to the next song using the remote if you don't like the current one. The battery in the MyFi lasts about 6 hours.
posted
XM Satellite: Samsung Electronics Partners With XMSR to Offer Samsung's First MP3 Players With XM Satellite Radio (XMSR) 36.36 :-Update-
Samsung Electronics Co today announced a strategic alliance with XM Satellite Radio to introduce its first MP3 players with XM Satellite Radio capability. The relationship entails the production of two miniature flash memory Samsung players that will utilize XM's Connect-and-Play technology. Both players will come with an XM Radio home accessory kit, which allows the device to receive XM's 150-plus radio channels of commercial-free music, plus news, talk and entertainment programming, in the home. Samsung's new players will be available in two storage capacity sizes and are anticipated to be available by year's end.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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May 2, 2006 Sirius Loss Doubles on Stern Compensation By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:43 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. reported Tuesday that its first quarter loss more than doubled, due largely to expenses of $225 million in stock-based compensation to its star shock jock Howard Stern. Revenue nearly tripled as the company expanded its subscriber base.
Sirius reported a net loss of $458.5 million, or 33 cents a share, for the January-March period compared with a loss of $193.6 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago.
By far the largest factor affecting the results was costs for stock-based compensation, which all companies had to begin recording this year under new accounting rules. Sirius reported stock compensation expenses of $284.6 million, of which about $225 million went to Stern and his affiliates, a company spokesman said.
The company said stock compensation costs accounted for 20 cents per share of the loss in the most recent quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had been expecting a wider loss of 36 cents per share.
On an earnings call with analysts, company officials said they had enough cash on hand to fund their current needs and expect to start turning a profit on a cash flow basis as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. Sirius also said its average cost for acquiring subscribers -- a figure closely watched by investors -- fell 41 percent to $113 in the quarter.
Investors liked what they heard, and sent Sirius's shares up 27 cents, or 5.8 percent, to $4.89 in active trading Tuesday morning on the Nasdaq Stock Market. However, the shares are still closer to the lower end of their 52-week trading range of $4.36 to $7.98.
Revenues rose to $126.7 million compared with $43.2 million in the same period a year ago as the company continued to build up its subscriber base.
Sirius said it had 4.1 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter, having added about 761,000 customers in the most recent period. The company said it now expects to have 6.2 million subscribers by the end of the year.
Both Sirius and its larger rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. are spending heavily to sign up subscribers and programming talent to their services, which require special radio receivers and cost about $13 per month.
On the conference call, Sirius's CEO Mel Karmazin said the company did not intend to follow the lead of XM in syndicating some of its programming to terrestrial radio.
CBS Radio, a unit of CBS Corp., announced recently that it was replacing rocker David Lee Roth in Howard Stern's former time slot in several of its stations with shock jocks Greg ''Opie'' Hughes and Anthony Cumia, who now work for XM. CBS Radio had fired them in 2002 after they aired a live account of people having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
''It was a great deal for Opie and Anthony,'' Karmazin said. ''We're in the business of getting subscribers to satellite radio.''
Karmazin used to head CBS Radio, which had been known formerly as Infinity Broadcasting.
Posts: 2469 | From: Anchorage, AK | Registered: Oct 2001
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O&A discussion board. There was a similar deal for O&A listeners but it expired - and someone posted this one.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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The Inno and Helix have been lowered to $199 with the headphones...... Bastards always wait until I get mine to lower prices.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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The rumors have been around for months but I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. Bye bye Opie and Anthony if this goes through....
Feb. 19, 2007 — ABC News has confirmed reports that two satellite radio providers XM and Sirius will announce a long-anticipated merger today.
The two companies worked over the weekend to finalize a plan that is expected to be structured as a "merger of equals," although ABC News has learned the plan calls for Sirius CEO Mel Karamzen to run the new company.
The merger would require regulatory approval as well as anti-trust scrutiny.
Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, reportedly said last month that a merger could not be approved under current FCC regulations.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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You're sure this means O&A will go away? That would be just wrong.. I'll stop my subscription if thats the case..
Posts: 2469 | From: Anchorage, AK | Registered: Oct 2001
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I am not sure about it but I can't see them working with Stern. If they move them to afternoons etc they will blow up their jobs etc.
It does look like they plan to keep both services seperated for the next few years then offer different channels alcarte. At first I thought it would be a win win because of all the added content but if they start to charge more and limit content unless you pay I think it will be a monopoly. Currently, both companies have been very aggresive with getting talent etc and keeping prices low. With a merger and lack of competition I can't see it being an improvment.
I love sat radio but if they force OA out I will probably cancel mine for spite.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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While I dont trust any Corp entity not to backtrack or twist their statements to suit their needs & desire.. The info posted so far on XMFan basically says
"Neither broadcast platform will be eliminated, and exclusive content (MLB, Howard, etc) contracts could be re-worked to allow them to be heard on existing XM or Sirius-branded receivers..."
I hope they stick too it.. They better realize that a lot of variety, lots of different personalities (like having all the talk personalities, compteting to a degree) will do a lot more for business than just re-inventing Terrestrial Radio schtick, and having their token "shock jock" in Stern...
They could really grow here, and they could def fall flat on their face.. Hopefully the music channels will get even more variety without being as redundant (both within each channel, and between the two companies).. Opening up more bandwidth for other use's...
Radio needs more innovators and less "schtick and marketing".. I love it when O&A rant about this..
I mean really when was the last time someone really produced something "new" with a radio broadcast (terrestrial or Sat..) It needs some individuals who will break from the dominate paradigm that its totally stuck in with regards to content..
Posts: 2469 | From: Anchorage, AK | Registered: Oct 2001
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I listened to the conference call while O&A commented on it this morning. They are going to attack the FCC with this idea "currently the consumer would have to spend $26 a month to get the content our company will provide". They are going to prove that they can reduce that and provide better service. Of course I don't think many people have both services so it's kind of unfair to state it like that.
They did make one thing clear - nothing will change short term (2 years) and after the merger is approved it would be cross content to start (MLB on XM etc). They have some interesting arguments to make against NAB who has a large lobby against the merger.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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So are you going to go with Sirius...back to Howard Stern?
-------------------- "Rarely has it been so clear how much we, the ordinary people of this country, are better than our rulers. I hope that lesson is not lost on anyone, of any political persuasion." Posts: 520 | From: Shakopee, MN USA | Registered: May 2002
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-------------------- "Rarely has it been so clear how much we, the ordinary people of this country, are better than our rulers. I hope that lesson is not lost on anyone, of any political persuasion." Posts: 520 | From: Shakopee, MN USA | Registered: May 2002
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