# Could the Merger be reversed?



## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

The Stockholders are REALLY HOT as well they should be! They approved the merger, but they were lied to like everyone else. And one of the things they are asking for is seeking review and remand of the FCC's merger decision.
The link to the story is a huge one and probably if I understood links better I could shorten it, but I will put it all out in this post.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...x?guid={E6C70FA5-72A1-4003-9B25-663248454E46}

I personally find it interesting that XM just started selling Lifetime Subs yesterday. May be they are thinking about life without Sirius?

The Link knew how to shorten itself :lol:


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Dolly said:


> The Stockholders are REALLY HOT as well they should be! They approved the merger, but they were lied to like everyone else. And one of the things they are asking for is seeking review and remand of the FCC's merger decision.
> The link to the story is a huge one and probably if I understood links better I could shorten it, but I will put it all out in this post.
> http://www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...x?guid={E6C70FA5-72A1-4003-9B25-663248454E46}
> 
> ...


The chances of the merger being reversed are about the same as the chance of Howard Stern becoming an FCC Commissioner. The suit is a fairly standard shareholder derivative suit especially when a company's stock has tanked. I can't say it's without merit.

Stopping the reverse split is a tricky issue...sometime next year NASDAQ will start enforcing the $1.00/share minimum again and should the Sirius stock go to the pinks...it's over.

In better economic times I'd bet that someone would just buy them and work out a deal with the creditors...just not sure any company is going to step up right now. We'll see what happens early next year when the $300 million comes due.


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## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

Merger reversed. Right. What's the precedent? Bad management? Enough of that around (Melvin). Bad deal for the Shareholders? Talk to Sprint or Nextel shareholders on that.

Bad deal? Yes.

Reversed? I don't think so.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

njblackberry said:


> Merger reversed. Right. What's the precedent? Bad management? Enough of that around (Melvin). Bad deal for the Shareholders? Talk to Sprint or Nextel shareholders on that.
> 
> Bad deal? Yes.
> 
> Reversed? I don't think so.


Read the story again. The precedent goes back to the inoperative radios. Mel said many times all equipment would be good after the Merger and it clearly isn't.
And even if they don't get the Merger reversed. They have put a bright spotlight on Mel. Letting it be known to the public what we as Sat. subs have known for some time. The man is a liar and a very good liar at that. Let's see he lied to Sat. radio subs, he lied to both XM and Sirius stockholders, he lied to the Dept. of Justice, he lied to the FCC, so finally he is being publicly branded for what he is--a BIG LIAR!!!!!!!!! If nothing else, Mel is going to have to clean up his act quickly or the door is going to hit him on the way out. BTW the man that signed on the Merger at the Dept. of Justice is either on his way out or may be already out. I read the story about him being on the way out in Google News a while back. But I don't remember when the leaving date was.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Dolly said:


> Read the story again. The precedent goes back to the inoperative radios. Mel said many times all equipment would be good after the Merger and it clearly isn't.
> And even if they don't get the Merger reversed. They have put a bright spotlight on Mel. Letting it be known to the public what we as Sat. subs have known for some time. The man is a liar and a very good liar at that. Let's see he lied to Sat. radio subs, he lied to both XM and Sirius stockholders, he lied to the Dept. of Justice, he lied to the FCC, so finally he is being publicly branded for what he is--a BIG LIAR!!!!!!!!! If nothing else, Mel is going to have to clean up his act quickly or the door is going to hit him on the way out. BTW the man that signed on the Merger at the Dept. of Justice is either on his way out or may be already out. I read the story about him being on the way out in Google News a while back. But I don't remember when the leaving date was.


What radios are inoperative? I have one of the earlier Sirius radios and it works just fine. They haven't gone past their timelines on the dual service radios which will be available Q1 2009.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Ken S said:


> What radios are inoperative? I have one of the earlier Sirius radios and it works just fine. They haven't gone past their timelines on the dual service radios which will be available Q1 2009.


There are people that have posted in many places that they can't get "The Best of Sirius" if they have an XM radio and 
also if they have a Sirius Radio they can't get "The Best of XM". That was the point in the merger--people were supposed to be able to get both services without being hurt by having to change equipment. "The Best of" packages were supposed to be available to everyone right away without any equipment change at all. And about the dual service radios will they actually be available? Mel has lied about everything else. And what about me and others like me that have a car radio. Before the merger Mel was saying they would work with the automakers to come up with car radios that would pick up all services so people could have the a la carte program packages. And he made it sound like it wouldn't take that long for that to happen. After the merger Mel said it would take like 15 years for a car radio to come about that would be able to pick up the technology of both sides of the company. I'm actually hoping the later statement was yet another lie by Mel. But with my luck that will have been the one truthful thing Mel has said


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## Christopher Gould (Jan 14, 2007)

i don't remember any part of the merger saying the furture additions would be used on old radios, just that your old radio would still get sirius or xm. no guarantee on the exact channels you would receive. thats always in the fine print they can change that.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

Dolly said:


> There are people that have posted in many places that they can't get "The Best of Sirius" if they have an XM radio and
> also if they have a Sirius Radio they can't get "The Best of XM". That was the point in the merger--people were supposed to be able to get both services without being hurt by having to change equipment.


Actually, the promise is and has always been that all pre-merger radios would still work post-merger to get either the Sirius or XM system's channels that you got pre-merger.

As for the new best of packages, where are people complaining that their radios can't get those channels? I've never heard of that problem and know several people who have gotten the best of packages with their old pre-merger radios.


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## SDizzle (Jan 1, 2007)

I have "best of sirius" in my 2007 Infiniti, that radio was "pre-merger". Other than the sports from either service and special deals like Howard Stern, all music is like 95% the same on both now, and major networks like cnn, disney, etc. are all the same. If a certain sub had a desire for 1 sport or another, they would have chosen one service or another based on which sport they wanted...MLB on XM, NFL on Sirius.

I don't see nearly the outrage from the "majority" of subs from either side that are beside themselves....as much as I see a select few that for one reason or another have a rager for wanting to see them fail....and I think the latter of the two typically are posting around here.


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## mhayes70 (Mar 21, 2006)

I have never heard of any radio's not working either. All of my XM and Sirius radio's work. On my XM radio in my car I don't see any of the Best of Sirius channels. But, I don't subscribe to that package. So, I won't see them.


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## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

Dolly - stop making this stuff up. Seriously.


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## SDizzle (Jan 1, 2007)

njblackberry said:


> Dolly - stop making this stuff up. Seriously.


Didn't she say in another thread around here somewhere that she DID in fact pay for the LIFETIME sub recently?!? If so, then why is she so hell bent on seeing them fail?????


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

I am confused as all hell what Dolly wants. First the big reason she was against the merger was because she was worried about hardware, she didn't want her radio to be obsolete. Which it won't be. And just because a receiver can't receive a Best of package doesn't mean Melvin lied. Your still able to get the XM or Sirius service you had before (line up is different, but it's still service) just you can't add on the Best Of Package. Again Mel did not lie, there is nothing dirty here, you're not losing anything, since you never had it or paid for it to begin with. 

Then she wishes the company into bankruptcy and failure, then cancels, the resubscribes for the AC station, but is convinced the company will fail, but signs up for a lifetime subscription anyway and urges others to do the same to save the company she wishes into failure. None of this adds up or makes any sense whatsoever to me. 

And a merger reversal is not going to happen, closest thing would be for Sirius to sell off XM, but seriously, the merger just got approved a few months ago. Not gonna happen this soon, or probably ever, but we shall see.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

The base problem with this merger was incompatible encryption schemes between the services. Now you have an even more inefficient bandwidth usage model. Think about it - now each channel is being broadcast on different wavelengths in all these places:

- XM East satellite
- XM West satellite
- Sirius 1, 2 and 3 in their elliptical orbits.
- Each XM Terrestrial repeater
- Each Sirius terrestrial repeater.

Now I don't quite know how the bandwidth is divided up where the Sirius birds are concerned to avoid interference, but there's now a LOT of duplication out there.

If they could have gone to ONE service using all the bandwith (repeated only on the terrestrial repeaters), then EVERYones favorite channels could have been saved and some could have come back form the dead (Special X, Music Lab, etc).

Unlike D* & E*, there's not enough money in the monthly fee to allow for receiver swapouts (as was proposed in the D/E merger talks)


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

Steve Mehs said:


> I am confused as all hell what Dolly wants.


...she's probably like me, just wants to see return on her investment, whether it be in a 4 year old radio or a life time sub. Losing money is not cool. Losing money to dumb CEO's is uncalled for.

...as far as losing something we never had, over a beer lets talk about the NBA.


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## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

djlong said:


> The base problem with this merger was incompatible encryption schemes between the services. Now you have an even more inefficient bandwidth usage model. Think about it - now each channel is being broadcast on different wavelengths in all these places:
> 
> - XM East satellite
> - XM West satellite
> ...


I thought when the merger came about this was the big plan was to use all the Xm and all the Sirius bandwidth in order to have all the channels so you would not have to choose between XM or Sirius you would just have Satellite radio And hundreds of channels to choose from. you could listen to the sirius channel if you wanted or the XM channel depending on your choice.
I still do not know why we cant do this instead of all this cancelation of channels.


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

ibooksrule said:


> I thought when the merger came about this was the big plan was to use all the Xm and all the Sirius bandwidth in order to have all the channels so you would not have to choose between XM or Sirius you would just have Satellite radio And hundreds of channels to choose from. you could listen to the sirius channel if you wanted or the XM channel depending on your choice.
> I still do not know why we cant do this instead of all this cancelation of channels.


..now were on to something...I vote for this idea....


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

ibooksrule said:


> I thought when the merger came about this was the big plan was to use all the Xm and all the Sirius bandwidth in order to have all the channels so you would not have to choose between XM or Sirius you would just have Satellite radio And hundreds of channels to choose from. you could listen to the sirius channel if you wanted or the XM channel depending on your choice.
> I still do not know why we cant do this instead of all this cancelation of channels.


It is because the radios that we all now have are designed for one service or the other and not both. An XM radio cannot be programmed for the Sirius frequencies or encoding scheme, or vice-versa. The channels that the two services are sharing are being broadcast on both services at the same time.

And the combined company is eliminating channels to cut its operating expenses.


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## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

All they are doing is losing people left and right. If they keep this up there will be no service left because they will have ruined what could have been the greatest service.


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

so..the bottom line is...Mel was right....he now owns 2 satellite radio companies. How cool is that?:lol:


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## reddice (Feb 18, 2003)

The only way I can see it happen is that Sirius XM goes bankrup and some two big corporations buy them and spit up the company again with each owning one part.


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## ThunderRoad (May 13, 2006)

That's the part about this merger I always felt was the sticking point and that it's nearly impossible to get everyone (Sirius subs & XM subs) on the same network. Even with combining channels, there's still some channels only available to 1 service or the other. And this company is in no shape to swap Sirius subs over to XM subs with radios. 

It also makes a person wonder after they've done this what the status on the dual-band radios would be.....if there's really a need for one now.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> It also makes a person wonder after they've done this what the status on the dual-band radios would be.....if there's really a need for one now.


I would say no. There is no real need IMO, but we'll see them. Like I've posted a few times, the main differences between the two line ups now are the Clear Channel Programming on XM, and the CBC Programming on Sirius. And a few other things. I'm curious when dual band radios come out, what will XM Everything and Sirius Everything cost? They better not charge full price for both subscriptions, no way in hell is having both now worth $26, when 90% of the prgramming is the same.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

In the run-up to the merger approval, I heard time and itme again the myth that people thought the merger would take a pair of 150-channel services and turn them into a 300-channel universe. 

No matter how many times I explained why that couldn't happen, the myth kept popping up over and over. Various articles on the web hoped for this and people kept repeating it as if it were a forthcoming fact. NOWHERE did XM or Sirius people say this would happen. Some people believed what they wanted to believe.

If I would have thought FOR ONE MINUTE that new decyption software could be downloaded to the various radios to support a truly unified service, I would have been 100% behind the merger.


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

djlong said:


> In the run-up to the merger approval, I heard time and itme again the myth that people thought the merger would take a pair of 150-channel services and turn them into a 300-channel universe.
> 
> No matter how many times I explained why that couldn't happen, the myth kept popping up over and over. Various articles on the web hoped for this and people kept repeating it as if it were a forthcoming fact. NOWHERE did XM or Sirius people say this would happen. Some people believed what they wanted to believe.
> 
> If I would have thought FOR ONE MINUTE that new decyption software could be downloaded to the various radios to support a truly unified service, I would have been 100% behind the merger.


..I hear ya!

But part of the problem was beside the 'software' explantion, they had NO plan. If you look at what they're doing is calling themselves 'Sirius XM while still running two types of broadcasts, not too mention gouging the consumer with some 'bridge' deals so you can say you've got the 'best' of both worlds. What they need to do, is figure out to workout the 'software' problem so we all can enjoy the whole buffet or scrap one and pull as many as they need to ther other side. Once they do they, reach back and HELP those are just lost their receivers. Simple!:lol:


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## pigskins (Sep 8, 2007)

If you really look at it closely, Sirius subscribers with older receivers can no longer receive channels they had before the merger. People are allowed to be upset and form their own opinions. If you don't agree, fine, but it doesn't make them wrong. SiriusXM made their bed, they must lie in it. I think decisions were made to force people to buy new equipment to help their bottom line. NBA "moving" to XM is one. That's one shady deal. I've personally found that the music selection has changed, for the stations that I had preset on my receiver, to music I don't want to hear. I don't want them to undo the merger, it's going to save me money, I'm switching to free internet radio throughout the house and spend so little time in the car now that it's silly to pay for a sub to listen to it an hour or 2 a week.

You have to admit that you can no longer find them advertising the "Sirius Guarantee" -- the banners are gone from their US site. It used to look like this.
http://www.siriuscanada.ca/en/etc/guarantee.aspx

They were advertising Sirius as the home of the NBA well after the merger was announced and after the guarantee was announced.


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## DJConan (Sep 14, 2006)

pigskins said:


> If you really look at it closely, Sirius subscribers with older receivers can no longer receive channels they had before the merger.
> 
> You have to admit that you can no longer find them advertising the "Sirius Guarantee" -- the banners are gone from their US site. It used to look like this.
> http://www.siriuscanada.ca/en/etc/guarantee.aspx
> ...


My favorite line from that guarantee...

*Will my favourite SIRIUS programming*
You will not lose any of the unique and premiere programming you love. We'll also continue to bring in new celebrities, shows and more.​
And then...

*If you buy a radio today, will it continue to work after the U.S. companies merge?*
SIRIUS Canada guarantees that no radios will become obsolete as a result of the U.S. satellite radio merger. With a SIRIUS radio, customers will enjoy an unrivaled, coast-to-coast satellite radio entertainment experience.​
My player (S50) has become obsolete as it no longer works the same as it did last week.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

pigskins said:


> If you really look at it closely, Sirius subscribers with older receivers can no longer receive channels they had before the merger. People are allowed to be upset and form their own opinions. If you don't agree, fine, but it doesn't make them wrong. SiriusXM made their bed, they must lie in it. I think decisions were made to force people to buy new equipment to help their bottom line. NBA "moving" to XM is one. That's one shady deal. I've personally found that the music selection has changed, for the stations that I had preset on my receiver, to music I don't want to hear. I don't want them to undo the merger, it's going to save me money, I'm switching to free internet radio throughout the house and spend so little time in the car now that it's silly to pay for a sub to listen to it an hour or 2 a week.
> 
> You have to admit that you can no longer find them advertising the "Sirius Guarantee" -- the banners are gone from their US site. It used to look like this.
> http://www.siriuscanada.ca/en/etc/guarantee.aspx
> ...


Congrats. I think someone finally got the point of this thread. I wish I had named it something else. It was meant to be an informational thread on what the group "Saving Sirius" Shareholders want and why they want it. And I read on the XM site with my own eyes pre-merger and it clearly stated that "The Best of" packages wouldn't require new radios. It was the a la cart option that was going to need the new radios. And the site was right in line with what Mel was saying. Of course, that information is not there now so I can't prove it. I have read posts in Forums where people 
say they can't get "The Best of" with their radios. Why would these people lie about something like that? May be it is a thing with car radios. However, nothing was ever said that car radios wouldn't be able to get "The Best of" packages. At least I was told that the legal name of the company was actually Sirius so that is why the group calls themselves "Saving Sirius". The company was said to use Sirius XM for marketing purposes. I have no idea if this information is correct or not it is just what I was told.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

DJConan said:


> My favorite line from that guarantee...
> 
> *Will my favourite SIRIUS programming*
> You will not lose any of the unique and premiere programming you love. We'll also continue to bring in new celebrities, shows and more.​
> ...


We have an S50 and it seems to work just fine...our Stiletto and Starmate 1 are also operating just as they did before the merger. Actually, they're a bit better as they added TSN and Maddog Radio to the package.
I haven't subscribed to the best of XM...as there's nothing that I would listen to in that package. The Sirius site shows my radios as being compatible with all of their packages except ala carte.


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## DJConan (Sep 14, 2006)

Ken S said:


> We have an S50 and it seems to work just fine...our Stiletto and Starmate 1 are also operating just as they did before the merger. Actually, they're a bit better as they added TSN and Maddog Radio to the package.
> I haven't subscribed to the best of XM...as there's nothing that I would listen to in that package. The Sirius site shows my radios as being compatible with all of their packages except ala carte.


In order to save a song now, I have to hit record to, what I guess I would call prep it. Then it tells me to press again to start recording, then I have to press again to stop recording. So in order to save a song, I need to hit the save button twice really fast at the start of a song (assuming I know it's something I want to save) and then remember to hit the save button again to stop the recording. Lotta fun while driving.

I also let the player run in my car for 6 hours on Friday and it did not store any of the content like it used to. I had it on a channel that was one of my three most listened to, and I had something like 10 minutes of stored music. 6 hours later, I still had 10 minutes of stored music from that channel.

I almost never listen to live music. I either fill up the buffer, go to my saved songs or listen to one of the 3 channels that are filled up. That way I can skip over what I'm not interested in listening to.

I was already considering dropping Sirius because I was getting bored with the music on the two stations I listened to. They dropped one of my stations so it seemed kind of pointless to pay $13/mo for one station. The change in the save feature was just a secondary issue, but made canceling very easy to live with.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

DJConan said:


> In order to save a song now, I have to hit record to, what I guess I would call prep it. Then it tells me to press again to start recording, then I have to press again to stop recording. So in order to save a song, I need to hit the save button twice really fast at the start of a song (assuming I know it's something I want to save) and then remember to hit the save button again to stop the recording. Lotta fun while driving.
> 
> I also let the player run in my car for 6 hours on Friday and it did not store any of the content like it used to. I had it on a channel that was one of my three most listened to, and I had something like 10 minutes of stored music. 6 hours later, I still had 10 minutes of stored music from that channel.
> 
> ...


Ahh...I tried recording early on with both the S50 and the Stiletto and it just never seemed to work correctly (I didn't put that much effort in though).


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

VaJim said:


> ..I hear ya!
> 
> But part of the problem was beside the 'software' explantion, they had NO plan. If you look at what they're doing is calling themselves 'Sirius XM while still running two types of broadcasts, not too mention gouging the consumer with some 'bridge' deals so you can say you've got the 'best' of both worlds. What they need to do, is figure out to workout the 'software' problem so we all can enjoy the whole buffet or scrap one and pull as many as they need to ther other side. Once they do they, reach back and HELP those are just lost their receivers. Simple!:lol:


They not only had a plan but it was well known before the merger happened. In early congressional hearings about the proposed merger, they disclosed that plan to produce new radios that can receive both services. Those radios will probably be available in stores early next year.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

What's the point of a receiver that can receive both services now when they now share 90% of the same content?


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Dolly said:


> There are people that have posted in many places that they can't get "The Best of Sirius" if they have an XM radio and
> also if they have a Sirius Radio they can't get "The Best of XM". That was the point in the merger--people were supposed to be able to get both services without being hurt by having to change equipment. "The Best of" packages were supposed to be available to everyone right away without any equipment change at all. And about the dual service radios will they actually be available? Mel has lied about everything else. And what about me and others like me that have a car radio. Before the merger Mel was saying they would work with the automakers to come up with car radios that would pick up all services so people could have the a la carte program packages. And he made it sound like it wouldn't take that long for that to happen. After the merger Mel said it would take like 15 years for a car radio to come about that would be able to pick up the technology of both sides of the company. I'm actually hoping the later statement was yet another lie by Mel. But with my luck that will have been the one truthful thing Mel has said


I can tell you this much: I cannot get channel 35 (Holly) or the other Xmas channels on my receiver unless I manually tune to them directly. I've saved them to my favorites, but when I press the corresponding fav. # to which each is assigned, I get "CH unavailable." I then have to switch my receiver's mode from "Favorite Channels" to "Direct," then punch in 35, 36, or 37.

The receiver's only 6 months old, so I know it's not at fault. Funny how this problem never occurred until the big switchover earlier this month.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> What's the point of a receiver that can receive both services now when they now share 90% of the same content?


The point is that it allows a single radio to get what can't be duplicated because of limited bandwidth, but more importantly, it's a necessity because until the vast majority of subscribers have such radios, Sirius XM will have to continue to duplicate much of the content on the two different systems. When most people finally have such radios many years from now, the merged company will be able to start eliminating most of that duplication in bandwidth use. The sooner they start rolling out such radios, the sooner the elimination of duplication will happen.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Lord Vader said:


> I can tell you this much: I cannot get channel 35 (Holly) or the other Xmas channels on my receiver unless I manually tune to them directly. I've saved them to my favorites, but when I press the corresponding fav. # to which each is assigned, I get "CH unavailable." I then have to switch my receiver's mode from "Favorite Channels" to "Direct," then punch in 35, 36, or 37.
> 
> The receiver's only 6 months old, so I know it's not at fault. Funny how this problem never occurred until the big switchover earlier this month.


Have you called or sent an email to their tech support group? Sounds like your receiver needs an update. Maybe they borrowed the CIG technology from DirecTV.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> The point is that it allows a single radio to get what can't be duplicated because of limited bandwidth, but more importantly, it's a necessity because until the vast majority of subscribers have such radios, Sirius XM will have to continue to duplicate much of the content on the two different systems. When most people finally have such radios many years from now, the merged company will be able to start eliminating most of that duplication in bandwidth use. The sooner they start rolling out such radios, the sooner the elimination of duplication will happen.


"Many years from now" it will be interesting to see if Sirius XM is still around. And if it is what it will be like. I hope the company makes it because it can be a very good service, however, now the management is awful :raspberry


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Hey! I figured out what this newly merged company needs:

*BAILOUT*!


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Lord Vader said:


> Hey! I figured out what this newly merged company needs:
> 
> *BAILOUT*!


I think they should have forgotten about the merger and let both companies try for the bailout  Seems like every business in the country is getting a bailout even if the need for the bailout can be traced right back to the companies themselves :raspberry No one bails me out, if I make poor decisions


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

cartrivision said:


> The point is that it allows a single radio to get what can't be duplicated because of limited bandwidth, but more importantly, it's a necessity because until the vast majority of subscribers have such radios, Sirius XM will have to continue to duplicate much of the content on the two different systems. When most people finally have such radios many years from now, the merged company will be able to start eliminating most of that duplication in bandwidth use. The sooner they start rolling out such radios, the sooner the elimination of duplication will happen.


Most of what is not duplicated is Canadian content used for XM Canada and Sirius Canada, which have not merged. And no I don't believe for a second XM and Sirius will ever be truly unique services like they were before. So I don't buy the whole bandwidth for more content thing. Jackass Melvin already killed that idea a few weeks ago when he killed XM. There is no point to dual tuner radios unless you want both the CBC and Clear Channel content. And then what about monthly pricing. Let's say I'm stupid enough to buy a dual band radio, is Melvin going to change me for both XM Everything and Sirius Everything at $12.95 a pop making it $25.90, and paying for 90% of the content twice. Yeah, I was paying $25.90 for both before, but the difference is I was getting about twice as much content then as I do now that to this BS shame of a merger, which should have never been allowed.

Melvin, You Rock!


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

And, of course, the merger was supposed to mean more choices at less cost   You have to give Mel credit as a salesman. A "snake oil" salesman because he is one very slick liar. His lies took in a whole lot of people. How can a company be merged and yet not merged  They still even have two different websites :eek2: You can't join your accounts :girlscrea The company is still in a ton of debt  All I know that happened was a lot of people lost their jobs and a lot of subs lost their favorite stations :raspberry


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## ThunderRoad (May 13, 2006)

I agree. I think the chances of there being a dual-band radio are slim to none, since 90% of the programming is the same, and for the other 10% I assume they've done rather well selling "Best of" subscriptions. I never understood the point of a dual band radio while they were deciding on the merger when there was talk of some of the duplicate channels being merged. I think Mel led the FCC to believe the merging of channels wouldn't be as drastic as what occurred, that they put in there that a dual band radio had to be produced.

There's a few other conditions they really haven't followed through on very well.

Ala carte.....they did that half-hearted just to get by with. Put out 1 ala carte model receiver and have ala carte packages that you have to look up and down the Sirius website to find them, as if they don't want people to find them....they don't even offer it on the XM side. 

Not that it hurts my feelings, but I think they're already trying to balk on the special interest channels, getting a 3-month extension from the FCC.

Makes a person wonder how they're doing with the compatibility issues for the FM transmitters on people's receivers. They were supposed to start reporting that to the FCC every 3 months.

Another condition that'll be interesting to see what happens is next August. Yes, the company agreed to a 3-year price freeze....but they were given the loophole to raise prices after the 1st year of the merger if they had any increase in programming costs. That might be a big risk for them to take, unless maybe they'll feel the raise in subscription rates will offset whatever cancellations there would be because of it.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Mel says no price increases and that Sirius XM is making money in Q4 :eek2: I find that hard to believe since I read so many XM people cancelled. But, of course, since I'm reading from the XM side of the business may be the Sirius side of the business is doing much better? And this is a "merged" company what an unfunny joke that is :raspberry


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

ThunderRoad said:


> I agree. I think the chances of there being a dual-band radio are slim to none, since 90% of the programming is the same, and for the other 10% I assume they've done rather well selling "Best of" subscriptions. I never understood the point of a dual band radio while they were deciding on the merger when there was talk of some of the duplicate channels being merged. I think Mel led the FCC to believe the merging of channels wouldn't be as drastic as what occurred, that they put in there that a dual band radio had to be produced.
> 
> There's a few other conditions they really haven't followed through on very well.
> 
> ...


You are 99% wrong on the dual-band tuner...It's not on store shelves yet, but there are surely some of them in other places.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> I agree. I think the chances of there being a dual-band radio are slim to none, since 90% of the programming is the same, and for the other 10% I assume they've done rather well selling "Best of" subscriptions. I never understood the point of a dual band radio while they were deciding on the merger when there was talk of some of the duplicate channels being merged. I think Mel led the FCC to believe the merging of channels wouldn't be as drastic as what occurred, that they put in there that a dual band radio had to be produced.


Actually the remaining ~10% are the Canadian stations (both music and talk) and the Clear Channel stations on XM for the most part.

Sirius Only: 
Music - Sirius Hits 1
Talk - ESPN Full Access, ESPN Deportes, Sirius Sports Central, Sporting News Radio, Sports Extra, OutQ, Road Dog, NPR Talk, Sirius Patriot, Sirius Left, JBC PremierPlus, RCI, EWTN Radio
Canadian Music - Iceberg 95, CBC Radio 3, Bandeapart, Rock Velours, Energie
Canadian Talk - Sports Express 97, Hardcore Sports Radio, CBC Radio One

Howard 100, Howard 101, Martha Stewart Living, NFL Radio, NASCAR Radio, Playboy Radio available with Best of Sirius on XM

XM Only: 
Music - Top 20 On 20, The Village, The Groove
Talk - ESPN Xtra, XM Deportivo, MLB Home Plate, C-SPAN Radio, Fox Business News, America Right, America Left, The Power, Open Road
Canadian Music - The Verge, Air Musque, La Sup Route 
Canadian Talk -Radio Parallele, Canada 360, Quoi de Neuf
Clear Channel - Nashville, Kiss, Mix, Pink, Rock @ Random, Fox Sports Radio, Extreme Talk, America's Talk, Reach MD, Talk Radio, National Lampoon Radio

Oprah & Friends, XM Public Radio, The Virus, NHL Come Ice, PGA Tour Newtork and IRL available with Best of XM on Sirius.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Actually they have to do those radios not just because of the Sirius, XM, stations, but those new radios were also supposed to be able to get HD Radio. I know about HD TV, but I haven't a clue as to what HD Radio is


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Dolly said:


> Actually they have to do those radios not just because of the Sirius, XM, stations, but those new radios were also supposed to be able to get HD Radio. I know about HD TV, but I haven't a clue as to what HD Radio is


No, they don't have to do HD for their new radios that was a BS request by NAB that they tried to force through the FCC. HD radio is the same crap terrestrial radio we have today only in a digital format.

I would suggest that SiriusXM should be forced to make their radios HD compliant as soon as NAB forces all radio makers to make every radio SiriusXM compliant.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Ken S said:


> No, they don't have to do HD for their new radios that was a BS request by NAB that they tried to force through the FCC. HD radio is the same crap terrestrial radio we have today only in a digital format.
> 
> I would suggest that SiriusXM should be forced to make their radios HD compliant as soon as NAB forces all radio makers to make every radio SiriusXM compliant.


OOPS Sorry :blush: That story was from HD Radio people who want it to be done that way. I know on TV HD is great, but I don't see how it would help radio that much


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

HD = Hybrid Digital, not High Defination. Great marketing by iBiquity, the brain behind digital terrestrial radio in the US.

The long and the short of the radio industry's AM Stereo for the 21st century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> HD = Hybrid Digital, not High Defination. Great marketing by iBiquity, the brain behind digital terrestrial radio in the US.
> 
> The long and the short of the radio industry's AM Stereo for the 21st century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio


Gee Steve thanks for the information :sunsmile: I have learned soooooooo much on this Forum. Including that I'm selfish and that choices and alternatives are needed. Wonder who taught me those things


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