Post by jdmatthews on Mar 12, 2009 11:43:24 GMT -5
No, things started to go down hill for XM back years ago (2003) when they let a vocal minority dictate the direction of the entire service. That small minority cried long and loud enough to get Kiss FM from LA kicked off the air, and replaced with what was for years a jukebox playing the songs. Keeping in mind of course, it was still a clearchannel owned and operated station. It isn't like XM got control of it when this switch happened. This minority wanted nothing, not one shred of anything resembling terrestrial radio. No talking, no dj's, no commercials (sorry folks, but had XM continued to air a couple minutes of commercials an hour on some of their channels, we might not be in this boat now), no nothing. That's what happened. And this is where we are now. I find it funny though to see now over 5 years later, many people having come to realize the Kiss move was stupid and WANTED the LA radio station back, and also I have seen a lot of people saying now they would be ok with a couple minutes of commercials an hour if it meant preserving satellite radio.
All these same hotheads needed to look into the future before they went on their rants years ago, I KNEW this day was coming, and it didn't have to. It never had to be right on the verge of bankruptcy. Essentially these people wanted the equivalent of an mp3 player with sports channels, only problem is you pay the monthly fee and then you have no option is the exact songs played. You may like or dislike them. I knew this idea was destined to fail.
I agree with you here. Fortunately, I wasn't in that "vocal minority." I've never cared to have XM sound like an iPod that I had no control over. If I wanted it to be like an mp3 player then I would have.... well... listened to my mp3 player.
Don't get me wrong, there were some DJs I didn't like. (I would always change the station during Heidi Selexa's shift.) But by and large, when I'm listening to the radio I not only expect, but I WANT some DJ patter, if for nothing else than to break the monotony and tell me what song I'm listening to without having to look down at the display. I didn't even mind some limited commercial breaks. I guess as a former radio jock myself that I actually expect stations to have to "pay the bills" and quite frankly I find some commercials to be interesting to listen to (if for no other reason than to check out their production values.)
When I hopped off of the XM train was when the playlists got cut so sharply. It got to the point where I was listening and thinking "yeah I already own that song" with each and every song that played. And when it got to that point, I figured I'd switch to my mp3 player for the long car rides instead of paying a monthly rate.