"All the time they had" was being spent on getting the merger approved and on arranging the financing and other details required to close the deal.blooker68 said:You'd think someone would have had this worked out with all the time they had.
Mel said on Stern's show last week that it will be $4 to add a few select channels (selected by Sirius), including Howard to existing XM radios, and vice versa for existing Sirius radios.xzi said:Within 2-3 months. It was part of the FCC agreement and Mel announced on Opie and Anthony yesterday that he will be included in the Best of SIRIUS package on XM.
Early price charts put it at $6.00 as an a la carte with a NEW radio (9 months away) and $14.99 to add it to existing XM Radios (including your current programming).
In both cases a rip off when you already get XM202 now![]()
Even if there is only one common set of music channels that are the same for both XM and Sirius, that won't save any bandwidth because the common channels still have to be broadcast twice... once on the XM system and once on the Sirius system. Same thing for CNN and any other common channels.machavez00 said:It should not cost anything extra to have all the channels. Once they have consolidated/eliminated all the duplicate format music channels. all that is left are the talk channels which both carry already (FNC, CNN C-SPAN, etc) There will be plenty of bandwidth on both sides for the exclusive channels( Oprah, Howard, Martha, etc.). The sports channels are seasonal and have little overlap. On the weekends, XM shuts down several of the business channels during football season.
I know that.djlong said:Ok, for the forty-leventh time..
THEY CANNOT CONSOLIDATE DUPLICATE MUSIC CHANNELS
The existing receivers are locked into whatever provider they were programmed for AND CANNOT BE REPROGRAMMED. This means the radios you see in BestBuy, the ones that come in your car from the dealership, the units you see at the auto-sound places - ALL OF THEM ARE LOCKED IN.
You can't say "hey there are two 80's channels, let's get rid of one" because you'll immediately have NINE MILLION subscribers who can't get the eliminated channel and can't even order it without buying a new radio THAT DOESN'T EXIST (the dual-format radio, that is).
That still makes no sense whatsoever. They can't "scrap" any channel on either the Sirius or XM system without causing half of their customers to lose that channel. They can't free up bandwidth that way without first replacing at least every XM radio or every Sirius radio with an interoperable radio.machavez00 said:I know that.
I am talking about the same channel and both systems i.e 80's on 8 on both birds instead of XM's 80's channels and Sirius' Big 80's channel next to each other; Or scrap everything that XM has save the sports and broadcast Sirius programming over the XM birds (or vice versa)
Could you finish that sentence so it makes some sense in the context of this discussion? A quote of the particular point that you are commenting on might also help someone understand what point you were trying to make.machavez00 said:if you want 600 channels.
You can dump the content-origination piece for similar channels and save the cost of production, but not bandwidth.cartrivision said:That still makes no sense whatsoever. They can't "scrap" any channel on either the Sirius or XM system without causing half of their customers to lose that channel. They can't free up bandwidth that way without first replacing at least every XM radio or every Sirius radio with an interoperable radio.
The year and a half was spent on getting the merger approved. They were still two completely separate and independently managed companies until that happened.blooker68 said:They've only had a year and half to plan for this, so how about cutting managment some slack. Not.
Add to that by law they had to continue to compete and not work together.cartrivision said:The year and a half was spent on getting the merger approved. They were still two completely separate and independently managed companies until that happened.
And your programming was subject to change without notice on each of the platforms prior to the merger, as well. Often, the choice is to have most of what you want with a company or to have none of what you want when they go out of business. Both were hemorrhaging money or they wouldn't have sought the merger?Lee L said:Well, the lack of understanding of the merger is finally starting to show. I guess people did actually beleive that right after it closed, they could get all the programming they want on their radio. Chances are that will never actually happen, even with a new radio that you will have to pay for because with all the channels they will eliminate (since each "duplicate" channel on each service actually are a littel different, any cosolidation will result in something someone wants being eliminated and replaced with somethign not as desireable) chances are that something each person really liked will be gone.