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Escape will escape from your receiver

CTListener said:
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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This sounds like what might have happned.
 
CTListener said:
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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Over the years, Sirius/XM and XM prior to the merger have eliminated from the basic tier quite a few Spanish language channels. The last move was to eliminate the Mexican Radio Fórmula network retransmission and the Regional Mexican Aguila channel. Before that, they gradually eliminated the Spanish rock, pop, tejano and ballad formats.

They have left odd channels like the Cristina talk channel and the CNN Spanish channel. And they have left the Caliente tropical channel, which may have some east coast appeal, but which has little or no interest to most Hispanics in the midwest and the west.

They are obviously trying to appeal to Hispanics who buy the subscription, but the offerings are for the most part dreadfully programmed.

 
DavidEduardo said:


Over the years, Sirius/XM and XM prior to the merger have eliminated from the basic tier quite a few Spanish language channels. The last move was to eliminate the Mexican Radio Fórmula network retransmission and the Regional Mexican Aguila channel. Before that, they gradually eliminated the Spanish rock, pop, tejano and ballad formats.

They have left odd channels like the Cristina talk channel and the CNN Spanish channel. And they have left the Caliente tropical channel, which may have some east coast appeal, but which has little or no interest to most Hispanics in the midwest and the west.

They are obviously trying to appeal to Hispanics who buy the subscription, but the offerings are for the most part dreadfully programmed.

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Funny thing is, they exiled Aguila, then brought it back as part of their big Hispanic push, and now are exiling it again. The whole Hispanic subscriber drive seemed to lose all of its momentum when the Piolin channel was abruptly dropped, for reasons never explained. (Couldn't have been the accusations that he was a sexual predator. That's what cost him his terrestrial gig and drove him to satellite in the first place.) Again, a show with appeal to Mexican-Americans put on a very short leash while Caliente, with its familiar East Coast/Caribbean sound, survives all the purges and changes. Is Pitbull, who now has his own channel, as popular out west as he is in the East?

I recall reading a criticism of Sirius vs. XM back when they were separate. The writer said Mel Karmazin was programming Sirius as though it were the New York City cluster of Clear Channel. I think there's more than a little truth to that even today. The service just seems to have a "We're in New York, you aren't. Accept that our culture and tastes are superior, you rubes" vibe to it. After all Sirius was the service that actually programmed a pop-up channel called "Client Nine Radio," on the assumption that the whole country was fascinated by the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal (nope, the story was played out after one day here in central Connecticut), that believes Cousin Brucie is nationally known and loved (nope, he was just another local jock, albeit in the No. 1 market) and that abrasive, nasal-voiced talkers like Adam Schein, whose shtick could only work in NYC, were the way to go for a national satellite radio service. Even the sports scheduling announcements are given in Eastern time only. Makes me wonder why anyone west of Michigan, Indiana or Georgia even subscribes.
 
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CTListener said:
The whole Hispanic subscriber drive seemed to lose all of its momentum when the Piolin channel was abruptly dropped, for reasons never explained. (Couldn't have been the accusations that he was a sexual predator. That's what cost him his terrestrial gig and drove him to satellite in the first place.)
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There was a statement that the addition of Piolín generated essentially no new subscriptions.

Again, a show with appeal to Mexican-Americans put on a very short leash
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Appeal? The show, on its LA affiliate, is 10th among all Spanish language morning shows in 18-49 and beaten even by KWIZ-FM.

while Caliente, with its familiar East Coast/Caribbean sound, survives all the purges and changes. Is Pitbull, who now has his own channel, as popular out west as he is in the East?
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Yes. He is just as popular in Buenos Aires and Santiago and Quito, too.

But, as you say, they have a tradition of thinking that the world rotates around New York.
 
From my Yahoo group (and this came from somewhere else):

"I called to complain (again... they're probably sick of me) and the gentleman I was speaking with was extremely nice and said that they have been 'very very overwhelmed' with complaints about Escape no longer being on the regular line up. He said it will 'probably come back' due to the massive amount of negative feedback they're getting."
 
WeNeverKnew said:
Reading the comment on FB and was quickly reminded of that same "battle savvy bunch that shut down Bingo in Wapakoneta." ;)

Did anyone see the story about how KAHM in Prescott, AZ has seen a dramatic increase in hits to the audio stream post Escape? They talk about it at their website kahm.info.
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I found this on another site:

Since Delirious/XM pulled the plug on Escape, The KAHM streaming site can’t handle the number of geezers who miss the 101 Strings. As a result, Los Buckeye Boyz predict a population boom of oldsters in Prescott who will yell “get off my lawn” while groovin’ to 102~One. But just wait ’til the station moves to Towers Mtn; changes COL to Spring Valley, and is sold. Prescott will then see a mass exodus of Oldsmobile 98’s!
 
vchimpanzee said:
From my Yahoo group (and this came from somewhere else):

"I called to complain (again... they're probably sick of me) and the gentleman I was speaking with was extremely nice and said that they have been 'very very overwhelmed' with complaints about Escape no longer being on the regular line up. He said it will 'probably come back' due to the massive amount of negative feedback they're getting."
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The trained chimps have been given a new script to read to angry Escape fans. It's not technically a lie because the weasel word "probably" is in there. Business as usual. The channel is gone from the sats, period.
 
CTListener said:
The trained chimps have been given a new script to read to angry Escape fans. It's not technically a lie because the weasel word "probably" is in there. Business as usual. The channel is gone from the sats, period.
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Now you're comparing customer service people to a former music director of a radio station I used to like who was run out of town on a rail?
 
http://bit.ly/bringbackescape

I clicked and it was a Facebook page for Escape fans. The Facebook page they were posting on deleted their messages.

It was there that I learned the former music director I mentioned in the above post seems to have turned up at Sirius/XM.

The channel they want Escape listeners to switch to has added vocalists from Escape and promotes itself using the word "escape". It is, of course, not the same. But if I was willing to subscribe, it sounds like a channel I would like. It was probably the channel playing in Dairy Queen, someone told me when I asked about it here. The people at Dairy Queen could only tell me it was Sirius. And now, it makes me happy to learn that fans of that channel are upset about these really old songs. Well, I don't want the really new songs, so we're even.

Also mentioned on that site was Yacht Rock. I figured that couldn't possibly be good, but the songs listed were the ones I liked when I was in college.
 
The Facebook page says Yacht Rock's listeners don't like the repetition. I guess that would be a problem, as limited as the format appears to be.

I read also that Love listeners aren't too happy according to the Facebook page, but only positive comments are shown. Yes, people actually LIKE the old songs. And some want more instumentals like Escape had.

However ...

Each day, the fight continues and the Escape listeners are still mad. And one commenter said it appeared the anger was letting up. No, it can't let up, because that's the only way the format is coming back.
 
Yes, it's amazing what can be accomplished when listeners come together and TAKE ACTION. People might assume the beautiful music format is dead, but it's still alive and kickin'. :)
 
Well, I picked the wrong week to go to the beach. I finally had the time to go to Wikipedia and check for recent updates to articles I edited, and look what I found!
 
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