sirius-xm

Sirius XM: Two Companies With Single Mission To Confuse Customers
When satellite radio providers Sirius and XM merged almost half a decade ago, consumers and regulators feared that the combined company would begin to act like a fearsome monopoly with a stranglehold on the entire satellite radio market. Not quite. They're still acting as separate companies working together to confuse the hell out of their customers. Emily's family are longtime XM subscribers who bought a car with a Sirius receiver, assuming that since it's all the same company, the services are interchangeable. No, not even close. More »

Sirius XM: Two Companies With Single Mission To Confuse Customers
When satellite radio providers Sirius and XM merged almost half a decade ago, consumers and regulators feared that the combined company would begin to act like a fearsome monopoly with a stranglehold on the entire satellite radio market. Not quite. They're still acting as separate companies working together to confuse the hell out of their customers. Emily's family are longtime XM subscribers who bought a car with a Sirius receiver, assuming that since it's all the same company, the services are interchangeable. No, not even close. More »

Finally, You Can Get A Multi-Subscription Discount If You Have Both Sirius And XM
Satellite radio wonder-twins Sirius and XM have been together for three years now. Customers often whine to us: why can't we get multi-subscription discounts when they subscribe to both Sirius and XM. It's all the same company, isn't it? Offering discounts would have made too much sense, and was therefore impossible. Until now! More »

SiriusXM 'Everything' Plan Does Not, In Fact, Include Everything
If you were signing up for a plan called the "Sirius Everything Plan," don't you think that it would include...well, everything? At least, all of the programming that new car owners get to sample with their trial subscription. When Chris renewed his SiriusXM subscription for his new car, nothing on the paperwork led him to believe that he wasn't selecting a different subscription from what he already had. Yet he did. Because at Sirius, "everything" isn't everything. More »

SiriusXM Drops BBC Radio 1, Picks Up Customer Ire
Sometimes, a group of organized and determined customers working together can affect change and make a company see things from their point of view. For North American customers annoyed that SiriusXM abruptly dropped BBC Radio 1, that tactic isn't working. But hey, at least the outcry got SiriusXM to put BBC Radio 1 back on the PC streaming lineup. Which would be meaningful if the BBC didn't already provide free streaming access to the station. More »

SiriusXM Doesn't Want My Filthy Online Bill Pay Money
Buz uses his credit union's bill pay service to pay all of his bills. Normally, this works out pretty well for him: none of the companies he regularly sends money to have a problem with it. Trying to pay for his satellite radio with anything but a credit or debit card just results in invoicing fees and frustration. More »

I Just Found Out I've Been Subscribing To Satellite Radio For The Past Year
Brian said last year a Sirius XM representative assured him his subscription wouldn't automatically renew, but he found out recently that his account did auto-renew and he owes for the past year. The company won't refund him and simply points out that its terms and conditions revealed his account would auto-renew. More »

Photos: Behind The Scenes At CES 2011
While most of the reporters here spent this day before the official launch of CES 2011 going from press conference to press conference, I managed to convince a security guard that it was perfectly okay for me to walk around taking photos of the big booths being constructed. More »

New Sirius XM App For iPhone Missing All The Good Stuff

—>The new "premium" (their word) iPhone app from Sirius XM will cost $2.99 a month for customers who aren't already subscribers. It also doesn't include Howard Stern, MLB Play-by-Play, NFL Play-by-Play and Sirius Nascar Radio. Sirius blames licensing issues for most of the missing content, but not for the absence of Howard Stern, about which it won't comment.  More »

Sirius XM May Be Preparing for Bankruptcy

—> According to the NYT, Sirius XM owes $175 Million by the end of February and it may not be able to pay up. Bankruptcy may very well be in the cards for the Satellite Radio super-organism. The article cites a failure to "to win over many younger listeners" and the general economic downturn.  More »

Confirmed: Sirius Radio Raising Rates March 11

—>Sirius Radio customer service reps are now telling subscribers that the rumored rate hike is indeed going to happen. This means, at the very least:  More »

Is Sirius XM About To Raise Rates On Its Customers?
Ryan pointed us to an article on Orbitcast about a rumored fee hike by Sirius XM. The increases appear to be for services that aren't strictly protected by the FCC agreement, which is why they would legally be able to do this despite promises that they wouldn't raise rates for 36 months after the merger.  More »

Sirius XM Merger Reveals True Face: Fewer Channels And 'Sanitized' Programming

—>This week, Sirius XM began consolidating its channels. In reality, this mostly meant jettisoning XM channels wherever there was a tenuous overlap with something Sirius already offered, which is bad news for anyone with a favorite station on XM who woke up Wednesday morning to find it missing. Alex wrote in to tell us that the four Spanish music channels have been condensed to one without regard to genre, and that the uncensored "urban music" station Hot Jamz has been cleaned up, rechristened "The Heat," and now leans toward radio-friendly R&B. The Motley Fool suggests that the new lineup may drive people to downgrade their subscription—it's "an incentive to downgrade to the cheaper plan that costs $6 less a month and lets users cherry-pick 50 stations."  More »