By Dave Z | Friday, June 11, 2010 at 7:00 pm
About a month of terrestrial radio was all it took…
My XM subscription lapsed in March, but they kept the music flowing an additional month or so while leaving me regular voicemails to renew service before I experienced an “interruption.”
I figured my new(ish) and brief commute of about only 10 minutes in each direction meant I could pass on satellite radio. But the AM and FM programming wasn’t getting it done for me. Which is largely the broadcasters fault (limited selection/range, inane morning talk). However, I also have an issue specific to my Honda — when charging my iPhone in the car, my top FM station (DC 101) is blown out by static.
So I called in yesterday to learn what my XM renewal options were. I had planned to push for the half off rate, as anything more would exceed the cost of having a line-in jack installed for iPhone Pandora and Slacker streaming. As it turns out, no pushing was required and the Iowa-based phone rep offered to renew me at my previous rate ($77/yr). Unfortunately, online streaming is still an upsell for anyone who hasn’t been grandfathered. But I went ahead and gave myself a year of that, too – for something like $32.
It’s been awhile since I last had XM online streaming. And I’m pleasantly surprised by the amount of talk, in addition to the requisite music, that’s available. Also, this is my first experience using the Sirius XM iPhone app. I can’t say it’s visually beautiful (no album art, no landscape view), but it gets the job done well. Until XM and Sonos figure out how to play nicely together, I’m on the lookout for an iPhone speaker dock.
(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)
[…] Renewing Satellite Radio One More Year […]
June 12th, 2010 at 8:54 am
I love my Sirius. I always have.
Pandora is an enigma to me. I know a lot of people who say stuff like, “Why would I ever pay for SiriusXM when I can stream Pandora over my iPhone,” but wenever I’ve tried to use it I get one song I know followed by a bunch of crap from no-name artists.
My only frustration with Sirius/XM is that they continue to operate like two companies. Would it really be that bad to have a completely unified set of channels? I’d love to use the XM in my new car to listen to Howard Stern, but that requires a “Best of Sirius” additional fee. As a result, I’m still using my old Sirius unit/antenna instead of the XM integrated into my car stereo.
June 12th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Yeah, once you get used to satellite, there is no going back to regular radio. The difference is dramatic. Re Sonos, I have absolutely no problem playing XM through Sonos.
June 14th, 2010 at 7:29 am
We bought a car two and a half years ago and opted for the lifetime subscription. It was something like $300 plus up to 3 radio changes at $70 each. That means we break even after 4 years and could transfer once a year after that. We plan on owning our car for 10 years so it was a no brainer. We’ll be sure to get XM in our next car, so that makes it even more worth it.