New XM channels found on DirecTV

Changes are coming and hopefully they will be good changes. I'm just going to sit back and try out the new channels, nothing else I can do.

I have Dish Network (Sirius channels) . There is no indication on their on-screen programming guide , of any changes coming .

The changes keep happening to DirecTV's XM listings, btw.

- Soul Town (replaces Soul Street)
- Heart & Soul (replaces Suite 62)
- Hip Hop Nation (replaces The City)
- Spa (replaces Audio Visions)
- Area (replaces The Move)
- Symphony Hall (replaces XM Classics)
- Kids Place Live (replaces XM Kids)

Scott Greczkowski (from SatelliteGuys.us fame) posted this online:

"As a result of the Sirius XM merger, XM is going to remove some of the XM channels provided to DIRECTV at midnight EST on November 12th.
The channels coming down are
1) Oprah and Friends
2) The Rhyme
3) Raw
4) Beyond Jazz
5) High Standards
6) Fine Tuning
7) Chrome
8) VOX
9) Aguila
10) Vibra
11) Caricia
12) Viva
13) The Virus

XM will also add three channels

1) Hair Nation (classic hard rock)
2) Coffeehouse
3) The Bridge (not available until 1/1/09)

In addition, more music channels will be coming soon (hopefully in the next week to two weeks - still TBD) in place of some of those XM channels lost. The additional channels will not be from XM.

A website with most of the changes (the new music channels will appear there when ready to launch) will be up and running starting tomorrow night at: http://www.directv.com/musicchanges.

Also of note, there will be three holiday music channels coming. One will start on November 12th with the additional two coming soon thereafter."

BYE BYE 0.0!!!! AHAHAA HOWARD STERN ALWAYS WINS FAGGOTS!

The loss of Top Tracks is tragic. The Sirius "equivalent" is anything but...shallow playlist, same songs each day. How sad. Glad I just bought a Slacker and created my own classic rock station that is much better than Classic Vinyl.

Sigh....

I think it may be time to leave satellite radio.

I can't say I'm happy. Fred, ethyl and Lucy are three of my favorite channels and have a distinct style that is more than just playlist. To add insult to injury I don't see the Grateful Dead channel on that list, which is the only thing that Sirius has that I wish was on XM.

DirecTV will be upgrading back to "Music Choice" soon enough.
http://www.musicchoice.com/

I'm glad U-Pop and The System are coming to Sirius. I knew there was a difference between that and the Areas.

JUST ANNOUNCE THE DAMN THING ALREADY!

OK, XM is a candidate for a service stoppage for me. The deletion of Fine Tuning and the non-inclusion of the Vault will essentially make XM have zero music value for me. Enjoy your mainstream music selection.

This is making me very nervous. A old school rap channel better be added soon. I can not believe that this would be cut across the services.

DirecTV doesn't carry all of the XM channels. Just many of them.

So if you feel one may be on there, but is missing. That may because it will be on the satellite, but NOT on DirecTV.

Where's Cinemagic? That was in the USA today advertisement. I think that Sirius decided to remove the premium channels from being free channels on DirecTv to make them more valuble for subscribers to add their service. Howard Stern was never free on Dish Network.

Release the fucking new channel line up already. What a shitty way to treat the XM customers. Listening to the XM music channels over the weekend I noticed that a lot of the DJ were not on. For example, the 70s channel was just playing music with no DJs all day. I wonder if they are going to merge the decades channels or just make the xm decades channels play music with no DJs. I'll know soon enough.

The axe will fall on dozens at Sirius today.

As a paying customer I deserve the right to know what the new lineup is going to be before it's shoved down my throat. I'm sick of how these two (now one) companies never tell their customers anything.

Phlash Phelps WILL be the morning DJ on the merged "60s on 6" channel. He mentioned that his audience will double tomorrow, when Sirius joins on.

I started my satellite radio experience with Sirius... and hated it. Besides the bad reception issues, the music was like FM w/o commercials. I was used to public radio which is more intelligent.

I switched to XM and have loved it for the last 2 or 3 years... deep play lists and no annoying bumpers, motormouth DJ' or ID's played over and over. Now, it seems Sirius is going to dumb down my XM. I couldn't be more disappointed.

Todd

I just wish that I could go to the XM or Sirius Website and get the same information that I get on Orbitcast. I can't believe that this channel changing event is happening this week and neither Xm or Sirius has said a single word about it. I am sure that there are going to be a lot of unhappy people, so perhaps they thought by saying nothing the companies could avoid disgruntled customers. However, did they think that their customers would be any happier when they wake up some morning (without warning) and their favorite channels are just not there, that they would be any happier??

Sirius Disorder isn't even in the same ball park as Fine Tuning! I will certainly miss Ben Smith opening up our eyes (as well as our ears) to new music/artists that you could never hear, let alone find anywhere else! This is what made XM so special and different from everything else out there. Slacker and all the other services can't really compete either. I hate to say it but the XM customers are really getting screwed royally here!

Any word , leaked or otherwise , if the Strobe has been canned , or is staying on Sirius ?

I'm sitting here listening to "Fine Tuning" for the last time, and Ben Smith's playlist for the past hour or so has been some of the best I've ever heard. This channel has been my mainstay since I first got XM in 2002, and when it won't be there tomorrow, I don't know how I'm going to handle it. It's like losing an old friend that's always been there for me. No matter how bad the day or commute was, there was always "Fine Tuning" to decompress/destress with! Nothing Sirius has even comes close to it. Where else can you find the kinds of music that Ben Smith plays?
Anybody else feeling as strangely melancholic as I am right now?

Why is this information being treated like a state secret by Sirius/XM? The people who are keeping this listing ship afloat (i.e.: you and I) are routinely kept in the dark until the very last moment. For a communications company, Sirius XM (whether together or separately) do a damn poor job keeping their subscribers informed and seeking out their advice and preferences. If this experiment is going to survive, let alone flourish, they will need to improve customer service and relations dramatically.

Sad, so sad. Fine Tuning was one of my top 3 channels (esp. @ work) - a dictionary example of eclectic intelligent programming. IOW not within the Sirius realm. We already knew Beyond Jazz was a-goner. It will be morbidly amusing to see Sirius XM continue to decline, the new programmers scratching their heads till they bleed, wondering what they did wrong - just as their counterparts at Clear Channel and the other brain-dead commercial programmers are.
If the Copyright Board can get it's thumb out of its butt and stop picking on internet radio, maybe some of the fascinating programming that drew me to XM will find a home there, even (especially) in a subscription/ad-free format. It won't be that long before phones and other wireless toys will be viable outlets for dozens if not hundreds of formats. Assuming the entrenched owners of the current market fail to kill or hobble it, of course.
Chalk up another "victory" for the "wisdom" of the market.
I'd hold off buying any new radios, there will be a plethora of used ones coming on eBay pretty soon.

IS FOX RADIO GONE!???!!??!?!?!?! hope not..

I just called XM customer service to see what, if any, information I could get regarding tomorrows channel changes. The first thing I asked the rep was what channel changes were going to be made. His response was "give me your name and address and I'll mail you an updated channel guide that you should receive in about seven business days". I said that's super, but since I am a subscriber and have been for over four years I would like to know before seven business days about changes that are going to occur tomorrow. To that he responded "Well Mr. Baxter the online XM channel guide should update once the changes are made sometime tomorrow". I then said to him that since you have a guide you can send to me, how about you just read it off to me, I've been a subscriber long enough to know what is different. He said "Well I don't actually have one in front of me". I said can you ask around and see if someone else there does. He replied "I am pretty sure that they don't have it either. You are not the first person to call asking for this information today". I then asked him if he had a supervisor that I could speak to. He said "I'm not sure". I asked him to clarify his response and he was stumped and assured me not to worry that the channel guide would be sent to me ASAP. I am guessing that they either don’t have actual supervisors or they were instructed not to allow customers to escalate the channel changes issue.

I told the rep that I was frustrated and felt that the way these changes were being handled was extremely "bad business". To my surprise he agreed and said that the company has told them nothing. He said that he found out about the channel changes from a customer that called in asking about it. He said that customers calling in seemed to be upset and that he didn't understand why the company wouldn't have given them information to share with the people calling in. I then asked him to level with me; I asked if he knew anything at all regarding the channel changes. His response was simply "no". He didn't even know for sure what time tomorrow the changes were going to take place.

I was very polite to the customer service rep and he was the same. As I was hanging up I actually felt bad for him as he seemed very frustrated that he had nothing to share. He did tell me that they were getting a lot of calls asking for info that they couldn't provide and that it was in his words “stressing him out”. NICE.

Way to make the transition smooth Mel.

Interesting further, that I just heard a promo for a Fine Tuning show that appears every Wednesday ... maybe the XM'rs really haven't been told anything, or maybe they've been told to continue BAU, or maybe they voicetrack far enough ahead that this announcer didn't know.
It surely seems like Sirius XM is trying its best to avoid/delay the shitstorm they'll suffer when their most loyal customers get stiffed on programming for which they have paid. Probably legalities involved. Due to the power of the microphone terrestrial on-air staff are rarely aware of format or employment changes ahead of time. Commercialization of public radio has ruined it in many cases, next comes satrad. It will take an environment unconstrained by channels, like the internet, to satisfy us who're so tired of mainstream pap.

I'm so glad I closed my accounts with this train wreck of a company two months ago! That's two months' fees I've stuck in my pocket and used for other entertainment. And I don't miss it that much, either. If you enjoy riding a company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, then you ought to enjoy the next two or three months.

Wasn't there an attempt to remove the Virus before and was eventually put back on due to the overwhelming pest outrage....since E-LO is gone I don't anyone at Sirius XM knows what to expect by this decision.......

Over the last seven years, all the eclectic streams have been replaced by pop/rock. A ride down memory lane brings back warm thoughts of Special X (RIP, Generalisimo), World Zone, Ngoma, Luna (the brightest and crispest stream with which to show off XM audio), and now, Fine Tuning, XMX, and maybe XMPR. I have never been into opera, but Vox! was a very special vocal classical music stream and I will look for the show, "Millennium of Music". A great show on FT was the Native American, "Hand of Grandfather".

I'm sitting here listening to "Fine Tuning" for the last time, and Ben Smith's playlist for the past hour or so has been some of the best I've ever heard. This channel has been my mainstay since I first got XM in 2002, and when it won't be there tomorrow, I don't know how I'm going to handle it. It's like losing an old friend that's always been there for me. No matter how bad the day or commute was, there was always "Fine Tuning" to decompress/destress with! Nothing Sirius has even comes close to it. Where else can you find the kinds of music that Ben Smith plays?
Anybody else feeling as strangely melancholic as I am right now?

I feel the same way. Spa is not a replacement for Audiovisions. XM covered more genres than Sirius. Now with a converged lineup it seems that XM will lose its main reason for having more subscribers which was that it had more channels and more diversity.

I listen to sirius most of the time. I have XM in my truck, my wife drives most of the time. I loved Top Tracks, Big Tracks and Flight 26. I'm really surprized they're all going. I listend to Classic Rewind tonight at the gym and it is distinctly different from the last time i listend. No DJ's, that's a plus and more Top/Big Tracksesk. Hopefully they will expand the playlist and take two good streams and make one great one. I can only say it would really have to suck to get me to cancel. I've had sat rad for 6 years and couldn't imagine living without it. We'll see, i'm keeping an open mind

What??? They pull "The Move" for this "Area" techno garbage??? I guess Sirius wouldn't know good house music if it hit 'em in the face.

And I agree with the previous poster, internet radio runs rings around satellite...just wait til they work out the Wi-Fi situation and then it's game over.

I am deeply disappointed with the loss of Fine Tuning and Audio Visions. Fine Tuning was like a constant friend and companion. The suggested replacements don't compare. We are seriously considering cancelling. I agree with the previous comments. What a sad day. What has happened to Ben Smith? Any way to contact him?

thats IT no XM202 again. im canceling directv. F--- Em. I think the pests should blast directv un till they put it back on

Eric, are you really cancelling DirecTV or is this round of internet bluster just for show (as it usually is when someone claims to 'make a stand')? You do realize that DirecTV does not control XM, right?

I got Dish Network since August, and I'm better much of the time with the Sirius music channels.

I'm doing fine with it!!!

Hi Eric, I was as disgusted as you are that DirecTV took off XM 202 the virus. However, I called them today, they told me it was a decision made by XM Sirius to take off The Virus. Then I called XM/S and I was told by a completely incompetent customer service rep that she didn't know if it was coming back or not. I told her to ask her supervisor, and after waiting 5 minutes on hold, the supervisor came on and told me that there was a merger going on and that 202 was not coming back at all on DirecTV.
I am a faithful listner of Ron and Fez on 202, however I let my subscription lapse in August because I didn't know what the merger would bring. I am so disgusted the way they have handled this. They are running themselves into the ground. I don't know if I should renew it or not.

ARGH of all the channels to drop, Top Tracks had to go? Turned it on today, and heard Blood, Sweat and Tears and 'Penny Lane' instead of the usual Floyd or Zep. Please....

Does this mean High Standards has been dropped from existence or just on DirecTV? What a letdown for DirecTV subscribers. Don't see anything in the new lineup that comes close to the fantastic music on HS. Loss of Jonathan Schwartz is gigantic.

The SYSTEM is GONE! OMG! XM thinks AREA is a replacement. Trash..Trash. I wont be renewing with XM...I hope Sirius/XM bleed so much money they never recover.. I bought XM because their lineup was better than Sirius.

Gone -
The System
Audio Visions
The Rhyme

These 3 were my presets. I called XM and they said oh well, we replaced them with the same type. No you did not!! I cant stand satellite radio anymore. They deserve to be where they are, going bankrupt!

Bring back X Country. XM has gone Nashville and I hate this new Outlaw country. That they think it replaces or is similar to X Country is a real slap in the face.

I hate to think of the impact it's going to have on the Americana and Texas music scene. With shows like Rogue Calls- it was truly music by the people for the people- the fans voice made the decision on what we heard not Nashville.

I've already sent XM several emails stating that I do not like Outlaw and want X Country Back. I am seriously considering unsubscribing after over 4 years of X Country enjoyment and have told them as much.

Hearing X country on the DirectTV was what brought me to be an XM subscriber so that I could hear the goodness other than at home.

Sirius, What did you do with Burbon Street Beat that was on disorder on saturday evenings. It seems that when you get something good in your programing it gets taken off the air. We love listening to the music from NOLA. What else can you screw up.

I listened for the virus almost exclusively. I can find the music I like anywhere else. What a waste of technology and a slap in the face from those who make decisions based on lowest denominator. Kind of like when the filling in ring dings was changed to cheap crap that doesn't freeze. I don't buy them anymore either.

I'm extremely angry that DirecTV is losing The Virus. This is unacceptable. Of all the XM channels DirecTV carries, The Virus is the most popular. This is an awful decision on Sirius/XM's part, and I hope enough people complain that they reverse their fucked-up decision and bring it back.

I have complained to Xm on their email, I have called to complain to Sirius on the phone, and I've complained to Directv. I'm thinking about canceling Directv and not subscribing back to XM...I've had it with these corporations. I know they could care less if I cancel out, but money is tight. I'm not going to specnd it on mediocre products.