All of the above are part of the user experience. Complaints about one poorly executed aspect should in no way be construed to mean the other aspects are somehow unimportant or less important.
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Sirius XM loses over a quarter-million subscribers in Q1 of 2024
- Thread starter DavidEduardo
- Start date
SiriusXM already has music channels like that with small playlists and plenty of the sort of repetition you love so much. But why would you want to paint the whole service with that brush and make it a carbon copy of broadcast radio? People pay money to get away from that.
But apparently the price has become the issue. It's why people are canceling their subscription. So why not economize the way broadcast radio has, rather than increase subscription price?
But if they lead to cancelation of the service, they are obviously more important.
Giving people even less reason to listen, and thus subscribe? That same strategy hasn't worked out very well for traditional radio now, has it?
No, cutting the subscription price to make it competitive with other streaming options.
If the quality of the current content is worth it, people wouldn't be canceling.
Without survey data, we don't know why they canceled. But trying to cost-cut your way to profit seems like a poor strategy when the whole attraction of your product is supposed to be that it's better than the one that's already available for free.
I'm basing that on the comments I see here. As I mentioned, Apple Music is also cutting costs to keep subscription fees affordable.
SiriusXM, also has cut some on-air hosts.
The app is more important from the standpoint it is an area that (in my view) requires attention and remedial action by senior management due to a suboptimal experience for some subscribers.
I agree price can be a deterrent to subscribing or continuing an existing subscription. It looks like ad-supported plans may become an option at a future date. Whenever my plan is up for renewal, I simply call, threaten to cancel, and receive a greatly reduced rate.
SiriusXM already has advertising on its non-music channels. Are you suggesting ads for its music channels?
The audio quality alone would be a dealbreaker for me. Their stations sound... dreadful. AM radio is extremely hifi in comparison.
That aside, I find it very difficult to justify paying a fee for what they have to offer. Perhaps 20 years ago when it was either pay the fee or get the same couple hundred songs jammed in your ears alongside commercials on terrestrial FM stations ad nauseam. But now? Most new cars have phone connectivity. Almost anything can be streamed for less money than their crappy, tinny, compressed sound. And - you still don't have anywhere near as much control over what you listen to than streaming off of a phone.
I drove my mother's car over Christmas break when I was home from school a few times. She has Sirius. I listened quite a bit during those trips, exploring the stations they had to offer, etc. I definitely couldn't justify $10/month for it. I think they want over $20/month. No thanks.
That aside, I find it very difficult to justify paying a fee for what they have to offer. Perhaps 20 years ago when it was either pay the fee or get the same couple hundred songs jammed in your ears alongside commercials on terrestrial FM stations ad nauseam. But now? Most new cars have phone connectivity. Almost anything can be streamed for less money than their crappy, tinny, compressed sound. And - you still don't have anywhere near as much control over what you listen to than streaming off of a phone.
I drove my mother's car over Christmas break when I was home from school a few times. She has Sirius. I listened quite a bit during those trips, exploring the stations they had to offer, etc. I definitely couldn't justify $10/month for it. I think they want over $20/month. No thanks.
Yup. This is another issue I have with them. I remember when my dad would get "free samples" in his truck. We'd be hearing the same songs again day two or three. Just awful. There were like 4 million hits in the 60s. I don't really care to hear "Sweet Caroline" every other day, thank you very little. He doesn't care about the sound quality aspect - it's the repetition that was a large part of why he didn't subscribe.
I’ve heard that the newer SiriusXM receivers sound better as they are using an updated codec. Does SXM have duplicate feeds with different encoding? Haven’t been able to find definitive info on that at a quick search.
I do recall reading maybe three of four years ago that older car SXM receivers, such as those only branded as Sirius, would stop working in 2027 as SXM drops transmission of the older codecs to increase available bandwidth for a unified standard.
I was led to believe the app sounds better since it bypasses the satellite.
That's the difference between curated content and on-demand. Sirius is curated, and they pick the songs, similar to OTA radio. There is no way to give users control over curated content. You either take what they give, or you go to on-demand streaming.
I have heard similar. My mother's car is only a year or two old, so I think it's likely using the new codec. I have been in cars where it sounds *better* than others... But still not "good" by any sense of the word.
I really, really dislike digital compression. It just sounds awful to me. Even HD FM radio - when I toggle it on in any car I've ever been in, on almost every station I hear the extra digital compression not present in the regular signal. Granted, a lot of regular signals don't sound great either because they're using digital STLs with a lower bitrate...
I'm sure the stream does sound better, and that's a good thing! It'll have a lot more bandwidth to work with, no doubt.
The stream could be a struggle for them, though, because it no longer holds the dashboard captive the way the satellite service did. Radio has been having the same problem. People have a lot more options today, so radio is no longer the dashboard default. I think the same thing is happening with XM. I have a lot of options - so if radio (or XM) doesn't give me a good reason to listen... I'm gone!
You're right - that is the difference in the two. But I don't see how curating music for the general public is much of a business model anymore. Streaming services all do that - personalized for the individual user. It's a losing game for radio or Sirius to hang their hat on that, methinks.
That's why I scratch my head when folks suggest cutting more people and playing more music. I just don't understand how that is a competitive strategy long-term.
It depends on the person. I can make all the food I like at home. Why would anyone need restaurants?
It was mentioned by management on the earnings call.
Some subscribers would hear ads; others (paying a higher price) would not.
How that would be implemented technologically is outside my scope of expertise.
How that would be implemented technologically is outside my scope of expertise.
That was my first thought. Show structure is very different when you add commercials. Plus they would probably have to subscribe to Nielsen, which they currently don't.
This isn't a good analogy. A better analogy would be:
You can go to two restaurants. One of them caters to the general public. They do research to figure out what your "demographic" likes. When you go, you sit down and they serve you. You don't get to pick what they serve you. They just serve whatever is popular. And they have a very limited menu. There is nothing personalized about the experience - it's based off of market research. The waitstaff doesn't have any personality, either - that was too expensive, so they fired them all.
The other restaurant has a big menu that you can pick from. Over time, as you pick from their menu, the restaurant uses its algorithms to figure out what you like - the particular dishes, the spices, flavor profiles, etc. It then is able to suggest food to you based on all of this data it has put together. Here, there is no waitstaff at all - just a computer providing a very personalized experience.
Which restaurant are you going to go to? My guess is most people would pick the second one. They might go to the first one every once in a while for a "surprise", but given the choice.......
Now, add in that in Sirius XM's world, the second place is also less expensive...