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Re: Commercials on Sirius/XM

T

Tilden

Guest
Re: Commercials on Sirius/XM

Am I the only who thinks the Sirius/XM commercials are extremely amateur sounding?
The production values sound like them came out a 1950's vintage AM day timer.
 
It may depend on which channel (format) that you are monitoring.
If you are listening to 50's music, perhaps they want the spots to reflect the 50's format.
 
The commercials are mainly of the quack medicine/real estate scam/debt reduction huckster variety.They sound cheap because they ARE cheap. Apparently SXM has had little success selling its widely scattered subscribers base -- all of whom can listen all day without hearing a single ad if they wish to -- to major national advertisers or they're just not trying. The promos, which all channels have in abundance, are more gimmicky hack work than cheap or amateurish: pounding, generic music beds, random phasing or processing of voices (the low-fi telephone quality voice is a favorite of theirs), even slowing down voices for no apparent reason. (The MLB Network Radio on Twitter spot, which has been running for years, ends with "MLB Neeetworrrrrrkkkk raaaaaadiiiiiooooooooo." Stupid, stupid, stupid.) I've heard much better promos on college radio, but SXM must feel it deserves something more than straightforward and effective for its bucks.
 
TheBigA said:
Sirius doesn't have a lot of data to provide national advertisers, compared to OTA stations.
Click to expand...

Do you know whether individual SXM channels show up in the PPM data, or does Nielsen just lump all listening together as "Sirius XM"? Also, I have one of the old high-powered FM modulators in my car and have it set to 88.3. If I were to become a PPM wearer, what would my meter register if I were to listen to, say, Deep Tracks on Channel 27, or -- even more problematical -- the Red Sox network (WEEI) feed of a Boston home game on Channel 177? Sirius XM, SXM Channel 27 or 177, or WEEI? Or nothing at all?
 
CTListener said:
Do you know whether individual SXM channels show up in the PPM data, or does Nielsen just lump all listening together as "Sirius XM"? Also, I have one of the old high-powered FM modulators in my car and have it set to 88.3. If I were to become a PPM wearer, what would my meter register if I were to listen to, say, Deep Tracks on Channel 27, or -- even more problematical -- the Red Sox network (WEEI) feed of a Boston home game on Channel 177? Sirius XM, SXM Channel 27 or 177, or WEEI? Or nothing at all?
Click to expand...
The meter would pick up on inaudible coding. It doesn't care that it's coming from an fm modulator. I'd also assume that WEEI only codes itself for its own ota or streaming. I'd say that it would know that it is SXM channel 177 or 176 when they play the hated team.
 
Last I heard, Sirius does not encode for PPM. Then again PPM monitoring is local, while Sirius is a national service. It sells nationally, not locally, except possibly for traffic information.
 
Tilden said:
Am I the only who thinks the Sirius/XM commercials are extremely amateur sounding?
Click to expand...
I do not believe they ever use music beds.
Tell us some of the channels to which you refer.
The only commercial channels I ever listen to are imports of sports networks.
BTW...nobody could know if you are the only one?
frankberry said:
Obviously, I do not subscribe to their service.
Click to expand...
You are missing out on hearing a radio market about the size of Canada, or NYC, LA, and Chicago combined, but with no duplicate formats, just overlapping ones. :(
 
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TheBigA said:
Last I heard, Sirius does not encode for PPM. Then again PPM monitoring is local, while Sirius is a national service. It sells nationally, not locally, except possibly for traffic information.
Click to expand...

So how does it determine ratings for OTA listening? Surely it can't be judging channels' popularity solely by the small percentage of users who subscribe to Sirius XM Online, can it?
 
TheBigA said:
Because of the digital music laws, they'd have to pay royalties for those beds.
Click to expand...

The beds I referred to are not on ads but on promos -- generic, obnoxious, percussive stuff, unrecognizable as any tune. I assume these come from some sound-effect factory.
 
CTListener said:
So how does it determine ratings for OTA listening? Surely it can't be judging channels' popularity solely by the small percentage of users who subscribe to Sirius XM Online, can it?
Click to expand...

They know how many subscribers there are, and they do their own surveys of those listeners. Since spots only run on the talk based channels, and they sell packages that include4 many channels, the individual channel listening is not critical for sales.

And, since some of the ads are paid based on response, the advertisers know where the results are coming from.
 
ai4i said:
You are missing out on hearing a radio market about the size of Canada, or NYC, LA, and Chicago combined, but with no duplicate formats, just overlapping ones. :(
Click to expand...

And you are missing the industry's worst horizontal and vertical rotations, often bizarre deep or relatively unknown songs even on the decade channels and repetitive promos and liners and no engaging talent and horrendously compressed audio and...
 
DavidEduardo said:


They know how many subscribers there are, and they do their own surveys of those listeners. Since spots only run on the talk based channels, and they sell packages that include4 many channels, the individual channel listening is not critical for sales.
Click to expand...

So email surveys and online listening statistics alone are how they determine which music channels are tweaked or dropped? Is that a statistically sound way of doing that?

BTW, I've received surveys about a dozen times in my 13 years as a subscriber, and not one has been about music. All have either had me check off which talk, news or sports channels interest me, or ask me whether I've heard the current campaign for a certain advertiser or advertisers. I wonder if they do any listener polling on commercial-free channels at all.
 
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CTListener said:
So email surveys and online listening statistics alone are how they determine which music channels are tweaked or dropped? Is that a statistically sound way of doing that?
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Sure, there is. You just draw a random sample of users and by phone or email or even snail mail you survey their usage of channels. I have been surveyed in the past, and they ask first about music and talk listening, ask favorite channels, favorite artists, favorite talk options. Based on responses, they ask deeper questions about other channels you might listen to, etc.

BTW, I've received surveys about a dozen times in my 13 years as a subscriber, and not one has been about music. All have either had me check off which talk, news or sports channels interest me, or ask me whether I've heard the current campaign for a certain advertiser or advertisers. I wonder if they do any listener polling on commercial-free channels at all.
Click to expand...

I presume the in-depth surveys, which take more time, are costly to do so they take a smaller sample. And I do not know if that is the methodology today, as the last time I got a survey was when I did not renew one vehicle so they probably wanted to know why... but they didn't ask about cancellation but about listening.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And you are missing the industry's worst horizontal and vertical rotations,
often bizarre deep or relatively unknown songs even on the decade channels
and repetitive promos and liners and no engaging talent and horrendously compressed audio and...
Click to expand...
Yes, they got rid of their best talents after the merger.
I prefer to describe them as offering a wider playlist on many of their channels, so as not to bore listeners with over repetition.
I still like to occasionally hear this.
Compression, take your pick, analogue compression, maintaining a zero tolerance policy for dynamic range as with OTA stations,
or digital compression in order to squeeze too many channels into a limited bandwidth.
Two of my favorite qualities of sat-rad, though, are the infinite s/n ratio and total lack of non-program material.
When I want to listen to music, I do not want to be reminded of what "things" I might enjoy purchasing, I would just purchase what I want to listen to.
Sadly, that last part happens everywhere there is digital, too many stations in DAB bouquets, eventually there will be too many HD sub-channels, and yes, too many channels on sat-rad.
 
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DavidEduardo said:
I presume the in-depth surveys, which take more time, are costly to do so they take a smaller sample. And I do not know if that is the methodology today,
Click to expand...

I know a few programmers at Sirius. They like to do "pick it or flick it" on their currents-based stations to test new songs. Often they're done in conjunction with the labels, and then the labels use the results to try to get spins at OTA. Doesn't tend to work, since the audiences are different. They've managed to be on the front side of several hit songs in the last few years, but I imagine the percentage of hits-to-dogs is about what you'd expect.
 
Thanks. I thought I was the only one who thought Sirius/XM's commercials were LOUD and obnoxious. They all sound like bogus infomercials. Guess what Sirus/XM - I change the station every time one of your commercials comes on the radio service for which I am paying. It just went up folks.
 
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