XM Radio

I like Country Music too, but what the local stations play around here is just whiny - twangy rock music. So, I either use I Heart Radio or Pandora to get the stuff I like. XM has several country channels so there is plenty of choice.

If I don't get the deal I want from XM, I'll see which of the streaming services has the best selection and offers the best deal.

 

My 1 year subscription of All Access $16.99 just lapsed and jumped to $21 plus taxes ($363 annually). Calling them was pointless as the rep told me that I'd have to go to the website for a better rate. By using the chat window I was able to get a year of All Access for $136, which included taxes and works out to about $11 a month.

 

Yes, they are terrible. Probably the worst business that I have ever interacted with and that includes the cable company, the electric company and the airline industry!

Their marketing deals make no sense. They send a crap ton of sales materials that are hard to decipher and contradict one another and they are still sending me offers to extend service on cars that I haven't owned in a decade.

That said, though, I do enjoy listening to the baseball games at night on long road trips. Some of the programming is actually pretty great (back in the day, the Bob Dylan radio show was nothing short of spectacular!) and it is good to have access to a news channel. In short, I hate them. But there is enough value there to keep me subsribed.

 

I was going to call, but might try the chat. My goal is on line access for $5.00 a month. I Heart Radio is $5.00/month and has pretty much the same music selection. I like the XM streaming interface a bit more, but not enough to pay $16.99/month. Pandora offer the identical package to I Heart Radio.

 

For me, I enjoy the live sports through XM. Especially when the games are out of market for me. For example, the Direct TV NFL ticket is over $300, and that’s just one sport. If it wasn’t for the sports, I’d just listen to a free station on iHeartRadio.

Clearly their product has a high profit margin and is very negotiable.

 

Yeah the $5 a month deal is about as cheap as I have seen for Sirius. I quite frankly, don't know why anyone pays more than that, as it is pretty well documented that anyone can get the $5 a month deal, if they try! There is no doubt in my mind that satellite radio is a good thing, because of the constant signal no matter how far you drive. I loved it when I drove across the country last year! At the time, they had a channel called The Johnny Carson Channel, and that was surprisingly entertaining as I was driving along the interstates. They later got rid of it, although I don't know if they brought it back or not. But for me, I am somewhat old school, in that I don't pay for TV [I live in an area where I get 104 channels over the air], and I just don't pay for radio either. So I used the initial 90 days free trial, and discontinued it. Then last October, in preparation for my cross country trip, they offered a thing where I could get 90 days for only a $1. That was worth it since I was to be driving across the country and back. But other than that, I won't pay anything as I rarely listen to radio around town. But, I have a neighbor who pays for it because of the several choices of country music. There wasn't much available around here on the radio for country music, and Sirius fills the bill for him, so to him, it is worth it. Everyone is different and has different circumstances.

 

XM regularly sends me $5 month offers.
If their sales people get anything more out of you they did good.
I can't get XM reception in the garage which is where my Taco hangs out almost all of time
For my needs, a local HD radio station does just fine.

 

I keep telling them I’m going to cancel because their regular prices are too high, then they ‘find’ another discounted price of $5 a month for 6-months or a year. I like it because I can use the app on my phone to listen in my other cars and also listen on line at my office where the TV isn’t hooked up yet.

 

After getting the last crappy offer I've pretty much decided to go with Pandora or I Heart Radio I'm familiar with both, although I haven't used Pandora in a while. I downloaded the app for that and have been using it over the last few days. I like the interface better than IHR, especially since Pandora rotates with the orientation of the phone. Well, the music selection is better for what I like to listen to. Which is "Classic Country" going back to the 1930s. Yes, I like 90 year old songs.

I have to decided if I'm going to get the standard or premium package. I'll likely start with the standard one and go from there.