So if you are a Sirius/XM subscriber, you will only be able to listen online.
I don't think they realize just how many subscribers they will lose.
I don't think they realize just how many subscribers they will lose.
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Escape will escape from your receiver
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
Here's a good indication of how many. Whether SXM cares or not remains to be seen.
https://www.facebook.com/SXMEscape/posts/1613718222237065?comment_id=1614159495526271¬if_t=like
https://www.facebook.com/SXMEscape/posts/1613718222237065?comment_id=1614159495526271¬if_t=like
Another one bits the dust!
So far I have lost three stations and seen others lose their DJs. Fine Tuning, POPs, and now Escape. I'm getting more choices with Sonic from Directv. Looks like Sat Radio is going the way of terrestrial radio as far as formats are concerned.
The only way to get choices is internet radio or possibly from your tv provider.
So far I have lost three stations and seen others lose their DJs. Fine Tuning, POPs, and now Escape. I'm getting more choices with Sonic from Directv. Looks like Sat Radio is going the way of terrestrial radio as far as formats are concerned.
The only way to get choices is internet radio or possibly from your tv provider.
Easy Listening has never been a format that appealed to me, but I can empathize with those who have lost formats they have enjoyed that have disappeared from the dial--it has happened to me too.
There are options, even if it requires some extra effort. I have XM and I have the streaming add-on/app. I have found that subscription rates can be negotiated to a fee that fits your budget, and I have frequently found the stream to sound better than the satellite service.
There is the upcoming internet service of the former terrestrial Easy Listening station KNXR Rochester, MN. It will be known as "97 Five" and their websites can be found here: http://www.97five.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/97Five
As 'arit' posted, there are options through many cable providers. Music Choice has a channel for this, and Stingray offers a service for providers like Uverse. Both have apps as well.
I would also suggest recording these for ones own use. Even with the options that exist, it isn't a guarantee that they will stay on, and at least you have recordings of it. It's what I do.
There are options, even if it requires some extra effort. I have XM and I have the streaming add-on/app. I have found that subscription rates can be negotiated to a fee that fits your budget, and I have frequently found the stream to sound better than the satellite service.
There is the upcoming internet service of the former terrestrial Easy Listening station KNXR Rochester, MN. It will be known as "97 Five" and their websites can be found here: http://www.97five.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/97Five
As 'arit' posted, there are options through many cable providers. Music Choice has a channel for this, and Stingray offers a service for providers like Uverse. Both have apps as well.
I would also suggest recording these for ones own use. Even with the options that exist, it isn't a guarantee that they will stay on, and at least you have recordings of it. It's what I do.
This is a shame. It's not as if SiriusXM is losing money with a B/EZ service. They don't have live jocks, it's just automation. And no sponsors clamoring to chase after that picked-over 18-34 carcass.
It's a given that the format is no longer viable in a commercial terrestrial setting, and to most people my age - I'm 50 - it turns the stomach (personally, and for some dark reasons, I have a closet fondness for it and will listen from time to time). Regardless, I hate to see any music genre, even those I don't care much for, be thrown out on the ice to die.
--Russell
It's a given that the format is no longer viable in a commercial terrestrial setting, and to most people my age - I'm 50 - it turns the stomach (personally, and for some dark reasons, I have a closet fondness for it and will listen from time to time). Regardless, I hate to see any music genre, even those I don't care much for, be thrown out on the ice to die.
--Russell
That's what puzzles me about SXM's ongoing effort to purge older-skewing musical formats from its lineup. The music channels don't run advertising, so who is SXM trying to appease by driving off the "unsellable" older folks? Maybe the businesses and ad agencies look at subscriber demographics as a whole and decide on that basis whether to advertise on the channels that carry advertising? Or maybe SXM wants to minimize the problem of subscriber death, which deprives SXM of opportunities to pass on added fees and/or upsell that subscriber to a more expensive service -- sink your hooks into a gullible 25-year-old and you can sell her/him any piece of crap that has "NEW AND IMPROVED" on it or carries a celebrity's endorsement with no problem at all. Can't do that with a worldly old-timer -- or a dead one.
SXM's whole approach is just so crass, cynical and lowest-common-denominator-targeted. I remember reading years ago that the inside term at Sirius for listeners with ideas for improvement was "Sperm -- Self Professed Experts on Radio and Music." I wonder if the suits and programmers there still laugh at the idiot subscribers when no one else is around.
SXM's whole approach is just so crass, cynical and lowest-common-denominator-targeted. I remember reading years ago that the inside term at Sirius for listeners with ideas for improvement was "Sperm -- Self Professed Experts on Radio and Music." I wonder if the suits and programmers there still laugh at the idiot subscribers when no one else is around.
Satellite does not carry ads on the music channels. The programming decisions are based mostly on surveys of actual subscribers where they determine the appeal of each channel. I suspect that the older leaning formats have been eliminated because there are few listeners as they either die or they become less interested in a certain genre over time.
Some of those channels are not 15 years old... meaning that if they mainly appealed to 65 and older back then, the appeal is now 80 and over. Not a growth market.
And don't forget a lot of the target audience for this music doesn't know how to use technology. So this isn't even close to everyone.
Somehow this posted twice. So I'll add this. Marlin Taylor, who worked hard to make Escape the special channel that it is, decided to retire ut made sure everything was ready for his successor. Who he believes won't even care.
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Imagine this. Primosphere was one of the companies competing with Sirius and XM. Their stated purpose was to provide standards and easy listening to those who couldn't hear them with AM or FM radio. Back then, Internet streaming wasn't a big thing.
Sirius and XM were the companies selected. Then they merged. Primosphere protested but was not given the right to give the merged company actual competition, much less the right to the vacated channels.
But what if they had?
Sirius and XM were the companies selected. Then they merged. Primosphere protested but was not given the right to give the merged company actual competition, much less the right to the vacated channels.
But what if they had?
There are more of us 30 and 40-somethings who listen to easy listening and beautiful music than SXM assumes there are. They might think we're all 75+ years old and in nursing homes, but that is NOT the case. Granted, most people in their 30's and 40's don't care for EZ/BM, but there are quite a bit of us 30/40 something EZ/BM listeners out there than what people realize. I do an online beautiful music station, and I regularly hear from my listeners who tell me they are in those age groups I just mentioned. Occasionally, I have an older listener contact me, but that is not very often. I am seeing many posts from "Escape" listeners on the SXM Radio and SXM Escape Facebook pages who are noting they are in their 30's or 40's, also, so EZ/BM is not an "old people's" format as many ascribe it to be. Here's why I believe that's the case: many of those people who originally listened to this format were probably in their 30's and 40's back during the format's heyday. My dad listens to this music and he is now 76...so 30 years ago, he would have been in his mid 40's. Some of the original EZ/BM listeners are still around, of course, but some have passed away. There is a remnant of listeners, however, who are in their 30's and 40's who listen to EZ/BM. They were exposed to the music/format at an early age (typically from parents) and developed an appreciation for it. I am one of those listeners who fits that category; I began listening to EZ/BM at 14 years of age (I am now 47). I have several friends who do online EZ/BM radio as well. All of us are under 50 years of age, two of whom are in their early 30's. I had a guy last night who contacted me and told me he enjoys EZ/BM and was listening to my station, and he identified himself as being part of "Gen X". Another thing I would note: listeners interest in music changes with age. For instance, I used to have an aunt who hated EZ/BM years ago when she was in her 30's. Now, in her early 60's, she has come to appreciate the music. Listeners get "pigeon-holed" into what types of music should appeal to them, but it's merely stereotypes and doesn't reflect the real picture.
Sirius/XM does extensive surveying of its customer base. If they determined that there were not a lot of subscribers that use the Escape channel, then they have absolutely conclusive evidence in support of eliminating the channel. They don't "think" anything... they know how much interest there is in any channel because the collect data based on their subscriber list and then get specific age, ethnicity, gender, income level and other data when they survey.
Every senior-oriented format that gets mentioned on this and other boards has a few outliers who are out of the core demo but who like the music. 25-year-old smooth jazz partisans, teens who like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Young adults who like swing, the big bands and the crooners. And so on. But there are not enough of them, whether it be for satellite of terrestrial radio.
If a different music mix... say "classic hip hop"... will get more subscriber interest than Beautiful Music, then the BM gets flushed.
What is the average number of active streams you have? And the peak capacity of your service?
In the case of Sirius/XM, they are likely surveying tens of thousands of people throughout the year and ranking the channel usage and importance to each consumer. You are basing your comments on a narrow sample of non-paying users, so there is no scientific base in your anecdotal evidence.
Nobody is pigeon-hole creating at XM. They survey a large sample of subscribers and track the interest in each channel and genre. If the interest is waning, the channel dies... just like 40's on 4.
There are no vacated channels. There are Sirius band radios, there are XM band radios and there are newer dual band ones. Bit they are using all their capacity on their 9 satellites.
Since the cost of entry to the market is in the billions, and as separate companies both Sirius and XM never made money, it is unlikely that anyone else ever will enter the market.
That is immaterial. Sirius/XM surveys a sample of its subscriber base very regularly via the Internet and old-school devices like landlines or even cellular phones. They find out how the users in every significant age group, in every ethnicity and every area of the country use satellite radio.
Glad to see we've converted you to an EZ/BM listener...even if it's just partially, Russell. lol
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They didn't kill 40s on 4, they just moved it into the lower-fidelity, mono neighborhood where the Canadian and FCC-mandated minority leased channels (which management would rather not be carrying at all) are and away from the other decade channels. It's now called 40s Junction and it's the same autopilot jukebox of old songs it's always been.
Correction: The channel was renamed and moved to Channel 73, between On Broadway and Met Opera Radio. I was thinking of the shoddy treatment given Aguila, the regional Mexican music channel, which was brought back to the satellite on low-fi Channel 148. Of course, SXM being in Manhattan, the geniuses there have now decided to take it out of reach of those with legacy receivers and without internet subscriptions, leaving Hispanic music for the average SXM subscriber simply a reflection of what's popular in New York.
Yeah, my former neighbor was listening to it in his truck when we were in the mountains recently.
I don't know where I read it. But I read it. As a condition of the merger, Sirius and XM had to turn over excess channels to competitors. Most of them were Spanish. Don't ask me how the receivers work. If it was a federal requirement, then a library I am going to next week will likely have the information. Hopefully online.
They didn't have to turn over excess channels to anyone. They had to carve out channels from EXISTING BANDWIDTH to lease to "qualified entities" (broadcasters representing racial, ethnic or religious minorities), which they did, after much foot-dragging. None of them were "Spanish." The Spanish-language initiative is SXM's baby, and was done to tap into a growing demographic. There was no demonstrated demand for two channels from Howard University, or a Korean news-and-music channel, or a Mormon channel. Those channels were added to the XM side grudgingly and are not promoted by the corporation at all. The top brass there wishes they would go away. SiriusXM WANTS people to listen to its Spanish-language channels. Well, at least the ones that sound like New York stations.
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