We just got a new car, and it comes with a free trial of Sirius XM.
The one thing we found right away is that, although it is commercial free, it is not talk free. Those “DJs” just love to prattle on. And then there are the endless plugs for the other DJs, as if we know or care who they are or what they have to say. I would say the talk/music ratio is comparable with broadcast radio.
The first question is, why? Why must they talk so much? It’s not like they’re saying anything. In comparison, Music Choice, which we have on cable, does not talk at all. 24/7/365 of just music.
The second question is, do people actually like it? To us, it makes the channels virtually unlistenable. We keep switching to get music, and the stupid receiver takes like 5 seconds to change channel. We have about 10 channels programmed, and typically 4 are talking at the same time, and three are playing music by the same band.
Or is it just me, showing old man tendencies? What do you all think?
If Music Choice were available for cars, I’d buy it.
They’re radio stations after all, even if I’m paying for them. I like the talking because normally they’ll give information about the band, who they’re going on tour with and when and things like that. They could probably break into the music a bit less, but they’re fine with me.
My impression also. My blood boils every time they prattle on about how commercial free they are. Even on The Bridge they’ll say something stupid like “mixing folk and rock with bands like the Eagles, on the Bridge…” I know what the Bridge is, assholes, I’m listening to it. Just shut up. (But, I agree, it’s not as bad as the 70s)
yes! The classical channel talks just as much as, and as informative as, our classical NPR station (KBAQ), which is, of course, commercial free. That’s the only one so far we can stand.
Remember I’m paying for Music Choice and they do not talk. Ever. It can be done.
I don’t have Sirius radio but I think I know what they’re doing. They’re setting you up for commercials. Once people get used to the much talk/little music format the talking DJs will be replaced with commercials.
It depends entirely on the channel. Particularly the stations like 60s on 6, 70s on 7, and 80s on 8 are actively trying to mimic the feel of a radio station of that era (or, in the case of 80s on 8, MTV), and part of that is the DJ patter.
I can’t listen to 60s on 6 when “Cousin Brucie” is DJing, because he talks and talks, and has listeners call in.
And, some stations, like the aforementioned The Bridge, and Yacht Rock Radio, don’t have DJs at all, though they do have occasional promotional voiceovers.
I disagree – I’m pretty sure that they realize that the moment they start putting commercials into the currently ad-free music channels, they’re going to lose subscribers.
I bought a brand new car back in late March, which of course came with the free Sirius XM trial. I never listened to it once. My radio is pretty much permanently tuned to the local NPR station (which ironically, given the title of this thread, is nearly all talk). Now I’m getting letters and emails from them saying “Hey, your trial has expired, don’t you want to subscribe so you can keep listening?”. And I’m like I never listened to it in the first place; there’s definitely no way I’d ever pay for it.
I don’t mind it. one of the reasons I subscribe to it is to discover bands/musicians, and the “DJs” on the channels I listen to are more like the DJs of old, who know a lot about the music they’re playing and often have interesting things to say about them. I’ll take that over the 20-25 minutes of ads per hour you get on terrestrial radio.
I don’t mind some of it, like the Buried Treasure show on Tom Petty Radio, or the stuff on the Beatles channel.
However, I am annoyed that they put talk shows on the Broadway channel a couple days a week during my morning drive to work. Sometimes you just need some show tunes to get into the proper mindset, you know?
The 80s on 8 generally has old VJs as the DJs, with a few exceptions. The whole thing has a very Casey Kasem Top 40 kind of feel to it, or at least the weekend thing where they play the top 40 for that particular week back in some year in the 1980s does.
But overall, I think they could dial the DJ patter back by half and not lose anything.
I suspect these stations are trying to recreate the radio/DJ experience from the era they represent. They (claim to) take requests, chat with callers and talk with performers from the era.
80s on 8 feature VJs from the early days of MTV for the same reason.
Some channels (not the music ones) already have commercials. Radio classics has them between shows (not just vintage ones). I also have run across them on some of the game broadcasts.
But I find the DJs interesting and usually informative.* It is radio, after all, and music radio always had a DJ introducing the songs and talking a bit about them.
BTW, has anyone tried their new online player? It’s part of the regular subscription. I’m impressed with two things about it: when you pause the stream, it picks up the song you were listening to when you play again, and if you choose a channel, it starts the listed song at the beginning.
*Big exception: the Sixties channel with the execrable Cousin Brucie, who was awful back in the day and no better now.
POTUS channel. MLB games. Beatles channel. A variety of NPR (and/or right wing stations if you like). CNN. And probably a bunch of stuff people like that I don’t even know about.
I have Pandora (but not Amazon Prime) and I sometimes will stream Pandora music in my car. Usually I can find something good on Sirius XM. I hardly ever listen to AM or FM in my car anymore.
I think my daughter has gotten sick of hearing me yell “OMG, just play a song” at the radio.
I understand they’re DJs, but they could really cut the talking way down. For the majority of the DJs a few seconds between songs would be plenty. I’d be more than happy if there wasn’t even a live DJ to begin with, just have a computer run through a random or preset playlist.
Having said that, there are some I don’t mind. Nina Blackwood has a lot of good stories. Meg Griffin comes to mind as someone that hasn’t annoyed me yet and I’m quite sure there’s a few others.
I see Cousin Brucie mentioned upthread. Can’t stand him or his New Jersey/New York accent and if that weren’t enough he never shuts up. But he seems to have quite a following and the people calling in seem thrilled to talk to him. I normally just pick another station while he’s talking and then flip back since I do like the music he plays.
In fact, the four DJs on 80s on 8 are the four surviving original MTV VJs: Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Nina Blackwood. (The other original VJ, J.J. Jackson, died in 2004.) I listen to that station quite often, and I don’t remember hearing anyone else DJing on it, other than '80s musicians as guest DJs (though I suppose that they may have had emergency fill-ins here and there).