U.S. Music Royalty Fee: Sirius XM price increase effective today

I plan to keep my 2 radios. MAY drop online access for $2.99 to off set the new fee.

Let me put this in perspective.

It costs me $ 16 for 1 Grey Goose and Tonic that lasts me 20 minutes to drink on a saturday night. Anyone who cancels is a pathetic little person.

And why does my "Premium online" stream keep stopping due to "inactivity"? On my iTouch.

Also, I would love to know how many cancellations SiriusXM is preparing for when Howard's contract ends. I actually enjoy many other channels, and would hate to see this, what I call the golden age of radio, end.

And, while I'm here, it seems a local XM repeater (in the Northern Va area) has stopped working, a few weeks ago, which forced me to switch back to Sirius and intermittent satellite reception. Isn't the infrastructure being maintained? Not a good sign.

Well.... There goes another sub.. I will be down to my last one. After one more fucking, I will quit altogether.

How can one company turn paying customers into pure enemies??

Stern will take about six million subs with him when he is done.. Also

had xm since 2003. the royality fee was enough to make me cancel. sirius waters down the service and then expects me to pay more for it. no thank you

No cancellation yet but the signal is AWFUL of late. It has been a consistent problem. SatRad has it's hands full with so much competition.

1.98 a month? OMG how will I pay the rent now? This will have no effect on my two subs.

It's worth paying an extra 2 dollars. Nobody likes a price increase, but that's just how it goes. I'm keeping both my sub to Sirius and XM.

I'm out. I only listen to talk channels - 202 primarily -- so I don't see why I have to pay a royalty for music. I have an iphone and a zune (w/subscription) for my music. Whatever happened to the ala carte choices that we were supposed to get with this merger? I want to be able to pay for the channel(s) I listen to. And by the way I can get the programming without paying for it. At least until they go under or can oanda whichever comes first.

I canceled one of my XM subscriptions because of the increase. I now have just one subscription.

I'm dropping my XM sub, but mostly because I have Sirius in my car and can listen online in my home. The MLB iPhone app has made MLB play-by-play on XM, the one exclusive set of programming I kept them for, obsolete. And the fact that I can't add my XM sub to my Sirius sub as a secondary account, even though THEY'RE THE SAME COMPANY, makes me want to cancel even more. This royalty fee BS is just the final straw that will force me to pull the trigger.

It's not about the money, it's the principle.

Two bucks! Let's see, if you have a 20 gallon tank on your car and gas goes up a dime do you give up driving and walk instead?

I called to cancel my three subs yesterday - one has not been used for a couple of months, the other two I'm just tired of paying increasingly higher fees for a subscription that has gone downhill in quality since the merge. They offered to keep me for $20 for all three subs, when I said no they offered 2 free months to re-evaluate if I really want to cancel. So in October I'll be calling to cancel again, unless they make changes. By the way, I'm a subscriber (3 subs) since 2003 and shareholder since 2002. I really believed in this company...but they've really disappointed and I blame management. I still have several thousand shares, but am glad I sold a bunch when I did.

today is the day!! us royalty fee, from now cust. will have to pay more in order to renew or open a new acct. sirius is passing this charge to de customer:The US Music Royalty Fee (US MRF) is part of our ongoing business, where the company must pay copyright music royalties to music companies and publishers.As part of the FCC approval of our merger, the FCC has given SIRIUS XM the right to pass this US Music Royalty Fee through to our Subscribers. The FCC is not “making” us pass on this charge and at no time should you imply that they are doing so.
“ Your two-year plan price will be $245.00 and $37.48 US Music Royalty Fee for a total of $282.48, plus any applicable taxes.”

I was thinking of canceling in Feb '10 when my 3 year sub expires. This just seals the deal. I'm out.

I have been an XM subscriber since May 2003 and have already been throwing around the idea of canceling before this increase, and maybe going with Slacker instead. I have been listening to Slacker online and my iPod at work more than my XM Online lately. I am currently under a 3 year plan that ends in 2011. If the music channels aren't improved substantially before then, I will probably not be renewing. It's not because of the price of the service, because it is still not all that expensive. (Just think about how much you pay for cable TV, and how many channels are really even worth having?) I still get more entertainment from my XM than the crap that's on TV lately. But it's lost that wow factor for me. Something must be done to make it worth keeping. ....and I don't mean signing C level "celebrities" to host their own shows. Bring back some cool music specials (not single artist crap) and delve deeper into the music. I don't want to pay for the same shit I can hear on FM. Actually WRXP here in NY is sounding better than most XM channels. Matt Pinfield's morning show plays some great music, a lot of music that I don't remember hearing on FM before. XM should take note and hire Mr. Pinfield as the music PD.

Please clarify: If a sub is locked into a long term arragement (be it 1 yr, 3 yrs, or lifetime) when will I have to pay this increase? At renewal? I paid a one time installment and they are not authorized to charge my card additionally w/o approval. How will this work?

I have already cancelled one subscription...not only because of the increase in the family plan subs, but because i have listened to my radio less and less...and my radio has seen better days, and I will not buy another xm2go unit to listen to what we have now...i will keep the other radio active as long as my wife feels she wants the radio kept in her car.....if it was my choice, I would be done with it....and when i did cancel my extra subscription, i did not take their free months

this past weekend, we had taken a trip...had the kids place station on for the little one...the next day, on our way back home, the first song that was on when we turned on the car was the last song we heard when we got to our destination the night before...there have been many times when we have gone somewhere and we would hear songs in the morning, then in the afternoon when we would leave wherever it was we were at, we would hear the same songs....the crap, short playlists were noticeable with Sirius before i got satrad, that is why i got XM...it's too bad that the people running the show felt that I should be listening to Sirius' programming.

I have sirius in my car and a portable unit at home. I will not renew my portable unit in Jan. There are two reasons for cancelling with the royalty payment the lesser of the reasons. Howard Stern is the main reason I am cancelling. I got Sirius because of him and I'm cancelling because of him. It's too bad he took all that money and then decided to give up a year into his contract.

I am keeping it. $1.98/month is nothing compare to price increases I have seen. Hell, my electric bill went up 15% last summer.

SIX CENTS A DAY WILL KEEP YOUR STRESS AWAY...

I think I can handle it... it's only $2.

I have been toying with the idea of not resubscribing for some time. This will just seal the deal.

Fan since 04. They dont deserve to see another dime from me. Sad. Very sad.

I will keep my one sub, but I am not happy about this at all. If anyones summer vacation involves driving, you know you cannot drop all subs.

SIRIUS, what are you trying to do your loyal subs.

All I have to say is good thing I paid for a Lifetime sub...

Thank god I have two lifetime subs. Best decision I ever made!

I had a Sirius radio in my car, my sub expired in April and i did not renew, I used the money it would have cost me to renew to install a hookup in my car so I can play my iPhone in my car, I can use slacker or other streaming music services if I want. Sure the audio quality is not great, but its decent, then add my iTunes music library and I dont miss Sirius at all.

Last month my wifes sub was up for renewal, cancelled that too, did the same thing, she has an iPhone, setup her phone in her car. The only thing we will miss on Sirius was being able to listen to NFL games. But alas, with programs like ooTunes on the iPhone, I will be able to listen to my football games anywhere I go.

So we are officially a Sirius free household for the first time in over 5 years..

Well, after 7 years, I finally bit the bullet and canceled Ryan. (this is SatelliteRadioFan btw, since typekey is gone, I had to make a new name).

It isn't just because of the price hike. It is because of a combination of factors.

The biggest thing is that the service (to me) is a shadow of its former self. When the services were separate, they had their own unique vision of how the service should be: XM had the music side down to near perfection, and Sirius had the best talk.

Then the changes came: channel cuts, new channels with too much repetition replacing them and etc, etc.

The promise of no price increases....how long did that last, a month?

I warned everyone on all the forums, including this one, that Mel (and overpaying for Stern) would be the worst thing to happen to this company. Well, turns out I was right.

I thoroughly enjoyed my XM for 7 years and Sirius for 5, but the time has come for me to move on.

It was a great ride while it lasted.

Good bye old XM, you will be sorely missed. :(

This will pretty much not affect my subscriptions whatsoever.

I called on Tuesday to extend my sub for a year before the increase. I got on line and saw that Best of XM was reduced to $1.99 a month/50% off, I pay $3.99. so I called, After an exhausting 45 min with the Indian service rep named Joy that did not even know of the 50% off deal and then told me I was not allowed the deal,I blew up and asked to be transferred. The 2nd service rep picked up the phone and I heard a good old American voice I felt like going cartwheels. I unloaded my frustrations on her and was given Sirius everything with best of XM for $101for the year!. I did some math and think I was given Sirius for $77for the year and Best of XM for 1.99 a month. Also two months ago wife called XM to cancel her sub in the car due to non-use and she was given $77 deal right away.
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I dropped my subscription to just "Mostly Music" to protest against them charging for the internet broadcast which was free when they were separate companies, and now that they are jacking the rates by $2, claiming they have to pay fees no one else has to pay, I am debating canceling my service. If you were singled out and told you had to pay $100 more in taxes per year and no one else does, would you pay it? No. This is just a way they a loopholing through the 3 year law against jacking the rates. Right now i had some extra money so I was going to upgrade my receiver to an XMP3 since they are like 55% off, and extend my subscription to a Lifetime (even though I have already paid well more than a lifetime subscription costs) but they wanted to charge me $65 in "royalty fees", that's about 2 3/4 years worth of royalty fees at $1.98 a month with no guarantee they will even be around another 3 years (lifetime subscriptions are non-refundable if they go bankrupt).



See, thing is, XM prides itself on being "100% commercial free and all music" well, so are CD's. If you took the price of a new XM radio + $200 that you would spend on an XM subscription for about 2 years to Amazon.com, you could buy about 30, maybe more, used CD's, which is about 40 hours worth of songs. But many people have many more songs than that since thanks to P2P networks, CD's are cheappp.



XM is desperate for money anyway. A friend of mine fell 6 months behind on his payments before he canceled his service and still has not repaid ONE PENNY of that 6 months. He got a letter from XM saying that if he signed up for a 6 month subscription they would forgive all past debts and give him a 25% discount on that 6 months. I'm sure what XM is doing is borderline illegal, but when enough people drop them because of their bad business practices, they'll learn.

The writing was on the wall when Melvin lied about the "merge" MONOPOLY, only newbs and suckers are sticking around bowing to Melvin. Everyone with any sense has cancelled and moved on long ago. The ch ch ch CHURN away from siriusxm is mindblowing.

That sucks. Maybe some of the extra fee will go towards bringing Howard to the iPhone application.

Fuck his bullshit raise I'm done.

I agree with sxminvestor. It's such a small cost. Stop complaining.

And I came for Howard, but when he leaves I'll stay. Why? Because have you tried to listen to regular radio at all since getting used to Satellite? It's horrible. Commercials over and over and the same 8 songs. The selection is terrible. I'm all set.

It's like sxminvestor says though... Why is it people have no problem spending $60 for one dinner out that lasts an hour but people complain when they have to pay $16 for an entire month of great service? People just love having something to complain about...

$3 more dollars isn't hurting anyone.
You probably have it in change in a drawer in your house somewhere.
Knock it off...

I can't believe people are saying they are going to cancel for a $2.00 increase. These people have to be joking! First, you could pay a year or two in advance to avoid the fees. I won't even have to think about this for another year. Second, $2.00 a month is $24.00 a month or 2 months of service. If you call every year and threaten to cancel, they will probably give you a month or two free. Hence off-setting the cost!! think people....or cancel the service for a few weeks and they will offer you a dicounted monthly rate. I canceled one sub due to car being stoelen and I get things in the mail offering me 60% off for a 1 year subscription. People, not a big deal. For some that say, why pay music royalty fee because they dont listen to music, then get the news and talk only plan and avoid it. Use the "great" Pandora or Slacker for music, if they are as good as you claim. As a hip hop lover, Pandora doesnt compare to listening to some of the top hip hop dj's and personalities in the world....

I had already been thinking about canceling sub. Howard's endless vacations and rehashing old crap is really boring. Why not introduce other ppl like Tom Leykis and Adam Corolla, or other entertaining guys out there?? Lets face it the quality sucks programming-wise and signal-wise too..Howard can retire for all I care..I can't see myself paying more for something I'm thinking of throwing away in the first place..

It is not just $2.00
1)Howard has 20 weeks vacation not to mention commercials and extended breaks during the show. No pod-casts for subscribers, constant replays and then at the end of the week a best of the week show

2)Bubba replay is BS. If he is not good enough to be exclusive cut him loose

3)Changing the music content and format of the stations

4)talk on music channels

5)$2.99 Internet charge

5)the signal is getting worse

6)The hardware is crap

trust me I can afford $2. Once you listen to music on Slacker and can fast forward songs and select what type of music you want you will not go back. I have sirius for Howard and this week I listened to that for perhaps 2 hours total.

The people that say they keep sirius because FM is so bad are behind the times.

Way too many people give Howard too much credit. Sure, he was a big help to Sirius to attract customers and give Satelite a big name personality. But the truth is he became popular because he was a "shock jock", his style is not shocking on pay radio. There is no FCC to make news with for contriversial statements. The reality is that we are not in the 1980's anymore. Howard has a shrinking fanbase as his listeners get older. Younger people don't want to hear a 50 year old talk about lesbians and juvenile stuff that was funny when he was in his 30's. I listen to Howard once in a while if he has a good guest. I originally was a XM subscriber and didnt have Howard Stern, I really didnt care. If he retires, most people wouldnt care. Sure, he has a following that would be vocal. However, most subs would stay and listen to someone else. Maybe Opie and Anthony or someone new. Besides howard seems to be on vacation half the time anyway. Maybe, Sirius XM can add someone like Rush Limbagh. I hate the guy, but he has a huge audience and satelite may give him more of a platform and freedom to say what he wants. Mabye he can start using the N word and all like he really wants too.

I will likely cancel. I listen only to TALK & NEWS which are loaded with commercials -- so having to pay extra for music royalties is not justified. WHEN are we going to get the option to pay just for stations we want access to ... and didn't they promise this option with the merger?

I love my Sirius. Price increases is the way of the world. You should see how many cable tv price increases I've had in two years. I probably have enough in my couch each month to pay for this.

Reasonable and I want the company to survive so no problem.

If that resturant that charged me $60 for a meal brought me out a McDonalds burger, or even a plate from Perkins, yeah I would be upset and would not eat there again.

FM Radio is McDonalds
Sirius is Perkins
XM was the original $60 plate of food that I used to enjoy. Now, instead of paying $12.95 for a service I enjoyed, I am paying over $18 total for a service that has maybe one or two good shows left.

As soon as those two shows are gone, I am too. It's getting closer to the day I find another way to get those two shows and cancel anways.

Yup same boat here I have Sirius radio paid till March of next year but really I have no plans of renewing it after I got my Slacker G2 player I have to force myself to listen to Sirius because I feel like I need to or I'm wasting it. So even the days that I try to listen to Sirius at work after an 1 hour or 2 I always end up turning my G2 Slacker player back on because of the music choices being custom to what I want too hear and nothing I don't unlike Sirius Radio!

I've been an XM subscriber since 2003. I remember watching the merger hearings.

***To paraphrase Mel: No problem Mr. Congressman, we won't raise our rates just because you let us be a monopoly. We have too much competition from all those iPods. This will be better for the consumer, I promise cross-my-heart (and my fingers). Anything you want Mr. Congressman. I'll promise anything and then do whatever I d*mn well want. Agreement, ascheement. ***

So Mel, how do we do the math on this royalty fee? Anyway anyone has tried, it comes up as more than the Royalty Board is charging SXM. Seems you have some creative accountants. I can't get away from the fact that after promising not to raise rates for 3 years, we now have the second increase in less than a year. Not to mention how you trashed the XM service and playlists. Buh-bye, Melvin.

I just switched my old sportster 3 for a Stratus 5 yesterday. I was thinking about upgrading to The Best Of XM.

I was shocked when I saw how high it would be, not because of the satellite service but the royalty fee.

I have Sirius Everything on a 1 year plan. I've had satellite radio since 2005. I listen enough to want to keep it, although I take extended breaks sometimes, which keeps it fresh.

I have nothing against anything Sirius XM is doing.

First, the RIAA and the record labels are greedy slobs, and at the same time they are greedy slobs in the middle of a recession so of course they're going to harass people. They're harassing terestrial radio to pay royalties which I don't believe they shouldn't have to pay. Why? because these same record labels wouldn't be anywhere without terrestrial radio.

Sirius XM and internet broadcasters are the victim of this greed. Without passing on some of the royalties to the subscribers, there would be no money to continue to operate.

As for people complaining about how they have to pay extra to use the I-Pod app, think of it this way. The sound quality on the "free online listening" sounds like crap.

Mel is always smiling. George Carlin once said if a man is always smiling, he's probably selling something that doesn't work.

Mel is a huckster, a carnival barker. Tired of his deadbeat merger promises that were written on Charmin.
Anybody else tired of listening to a music channel for an hour, and having them tell you a dozen times what channel you are listening to?

On Classic Vinyl, after every song they say "You are listening to Classic....vinyl....." They spend more time doing that then the songs.

f~~~ FM too, I will just listen to CDs in the car.

I just canceled after 3 years with Sirius. The reception sucks. Every tree leaf I drive under causes my radio to lose reception. Now I listen to Slacker and Pandora at home for free on my iPod touch hooked up to nice speakers. It's free and they play a better selection of music, IMO. In the car I use an FM wireless transmitter unit that plugs into the cig lighter. It uses SD cards up to 32 gigs. I throw all my music on the SD card, set the unit to shuffle and I'm in complete control of my music. The sound is very good too. I will miss the old Sirius that was around before the merger, however, what I'm using now is perfect for me.

I let the Sirius in my new vehicle expire and was about to resign for a deal they offered but I'm not paying another $1.98. gone....... Just another attempt to hide the greed. Oh and by the way, anyone who pays 16 dollars for a drink is just stupid! Now thats pathetic!

Let the apologists rave on, but the fact is XM radio has gotten worse (programming wise), and the price has kept going up. They aren't allowed to raise rates for a while per the merger, but they do away with the multiple radio discounts and add this us music royalty fee. I'm about done. I've dropped my plan to the bone just having mostly music, but for two radios, I'm now paying around $300 per year, and not even getting the content I prefer. This money can be better use.

Where is this $2.00 coming from? On my bill its $3.06.

Where is this $2.00 coming from? On my bill its $3.06.

I canceled both my XM and my Sirius subscriptions. It's absurd for anyone to raise prices in a recession. It's an insult to anyone's intelligence for them to claim the increase is due to the royalty increase. Now instead of them getting my $360 a year for the two subscriptions they get nothing. How smart is that?

A few years ago you were good. Then comes the commercials, especially listening to pecker pill commercials almost non stop on the comedy channel, that gets old REAL QUICK. Then you kill the online listening, which I used very little, but did enjoy it. Cant do that anymore, I wont pay extra for that.
Then you guys merge. Oh, now only one company to pick from, just like the power company. Screw the consumer, he has no other place to go.
Now you jam me with this absurd "royalty" charge. Your pathetic. I really have to think about renewing this time.
Whats next??????

I don't listen to the service as much as I used to in the past. To be honest, I usually only listen an hour a week now. When I cancel soon, I'll use the extra funds towards increasing what I contribute to my child sponsorship program.

First all the commercials for doggie downers and now the royalty fee. I still do not understand how come we are penalized over the FM radio stations?

O.K. the more I read the more angry I get. Now I have to listen to commercials, pay a royalty fee and unless I pony up another $2.99 I cannot listen on the internet!!! This service is GONE effective end of this month which is my renewal date.

I called up to renew and add Pioneer INNO to my subscription. I always thought the service was over priced and I had almost decided to let it go. When the customer rep told me about the Music Royalty fee I said just forget it. I am not paying anymore money. The rep instantly waived the Royalty fee for both receivers and she also waived the setup charge for the Pioneer INNO.

This is all a bluff. If you tell XM you are going to cancel they will waive these new fees. They cannot afford to loose subscribers.

I will definitely cancel due to this new fee. It was barely worth it before that--the stations are all repetitive, and the DJs are horrible. Why doesn't Sirius make the money back by letting go of the DJs and just playing the music? I'd have to think most people got satellite in the first place so they wouldn't have to listen to the mindless drivel of these people. Either way, there are too many other options for music these days...anybody with an iPhone should just fire up the Pandora app and get their music for free.

I feel sorry for the subs that signed up for a lifetime! The way things are going, I see satellite radio being around for just a couple more years. I was the first subscriber in Southern California to XM back in 2001 and believe me, it was the thing to have! No commercials in any of their stations and basically, they had no RULES to follow. The SONY PLUG And PLay was a great radio considering the time it was introduced and displaying the title of the song & artist was the ultimate feature any radio enthusiast could hope for!!!It really saddens me that the corporate world has now dominated this world or type of media and now being run by greedy, selfish mongoloids--I wish it was 2001 all over again!!!!!

I'm keeping my service. I like satellite radio, local radio sucks!!! It is great when i travel across the state, no interruptions. Quit your crying. I spend more in one day at the casinos...

Tagging each sub sucks. I have 3 cars, 3 radios. everyone whines about 2 bucks. so what...I dump 400 bucks a year for 3 subs. It would be nice if xm would review loyal customers costs so as to lower the loyal customers costs.

I have been a XM subscriber since 2001 and when it started out it was commercial free. Over the years that has changed and now about 20 minutes of every hour are commercials. I didn't subscribe to commercial free radio to listen to commercials. In 2009 Sirius/XM had over $1 Billion debt obligation and filed bankruptcy. Maybe an extra $1.98 a month coming from its almost 19 million subscribers will help them out.

It is just a matter of time before a subscription will be needed to listed to the regular AM/FM radio. And, with everything switching from analog to digital, it's just a matter of time.

I've had Sirius for six months because of a new car purchase. I like Howard Stern from time to time, but there is absolutely nothing else of value in that whole lineup. Musically it's just about on level with any other FM station. Lots of trite crap with various theme channels. I don't think I've ever been introduced to something new and interesting on any of those channels in a musical sense.

As for the talk, it's a joke. I like political talk and gravitated toward the Sirius Left channel. During the time of day I can usually listen a person named Lynn Samuels is on. So uniformed and clueless. And not even what I would consider a left leaning thinker.

I've tried to tune into the sports talk programs, but these guys are the same blowhards I can get for free elsewhere.