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kgb
Addicted Listener
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 125
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 Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:26 pm Post subject: Good bye Fine Tuning |
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Five years ago, when I first got hooked on XM by listening to the demo radios in Best Buy and Circuit City, I was amazed by the variety of artists played on Fine Tuning. I was hooked, and have ever since been a subscriber with 5 radios on my plan.
Fine Tuning played artists that just didn't fit the mold of one of the other channels. Less played songs from Alan Parsons, Reniassance, Enya, Aneal, Adorney, Chris Spheeris, Gryphon, Genesis, Julee Cruise, Karl Jenkins, etc....
Where will this music go now? Probably no where.
I can't see any channel on XM's new line-up that will merge this music into their playlists.
Just as the death of XM Music lab lost lots of artists, killing Fine Tuning narrows the offerings of various artists more than any other channel lost because of the wide variety of music they played.
Is XM moving out of niche channels? Looks like it at first glance, yet they have 3 channels completely dedicated to one artist.... how niche is that?
I live in an area with FM stations that cover rock, classic rock, and classical music. These commercial stations (and non-commercial) having programming that is pretty good, and except for the commercials, they do was well as the playlists for XM on similar channels.
Will XM thrive by cutting out variety and playing music common to any terrestrial radio station? It makes little sense to me. One has to wonder if they ever held focus groups about their channel changes.
Over the 5 years, many good music channels have been lost, and interesting programming lost. You can't hear the Dr. Demento show any longer on XM, Special X was lost years ago, and don't count on seeing Special XMAS this year.
If satellite radio isn't about music variety any more, but is just terrestrial radio packaged without commercials, then I guess it's an evolution that I don't care to follow any longer.
I've got my Slacker unit, and I can get my music with my selections without having the channels lost due to XM corporate. |
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ultraviolet353
Bye bye SXM. Hello Slacker.
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 1960
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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what surprises me is that Cinemagic is on but FT is not.--While apples and oranges, I am really surprised Disorder is gone too. Then again, I think every single one of Jon Zellner's decisions have sucked.
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Sirius XM's sound quality sucks. Period. |
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rearden82
Extreme Fan
Joined: 08 Sep 2006
Posts: 184
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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I just rediscovered live365.com today. Unlike Pandora or Slacker, their stations are actually produced by people instead of being a glorified MP3 player. A lot of them even have live shows. I came across a few excellent eclectic and prog-rock stations already.
I'll keep XM in my car; I don't think Sirius can make it as bad as terrestrial radio (although they're sure as hell trying!), but I'll probably be ditching my office subscription in favor of live365. I hope that I'm pleasantly surprised, but the Siriusization of most channels and the loss of XMX and Fine Tuning makes for a very bad first impression. |
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Demian
Extreme Fan
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
Posts: 241
Location: California
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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Sirius management has no idea what they are doing when it comes to their recent programming change decisions....
They are alienating huge groups of current and potential subscribers. You cannot axe whole genres/channels like Beyond Jazz and Fungus without it being make or break for current and potential subscribers who only subscribe for that genre. These are genres that you cannot get on regular terrestrial radio. Modern Jazz and Punk/Ska are whole genres of music that now have no replacement on Sirius or XM. These are the wrong groups to piss off, because they are more likely to cancel and be more vocal about it - thus affecting Sirius/XM's street cred...
I doubt many country or classic rock fans would cancel if they just got rid of one of those channels - compared to how many people would cancel if you axed out their whole favorite genre of music......
Sirius management is clueless.........
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rskolin
Freak
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 273
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: Re: Good bye Fine Tuning |
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| kgb wrote: | Five years ago, when I first got hooked on XM by listening to the demo radios in Best Buy and Circuit City, I was amazed by the variety of artists played on Fine Tuning. I was hooked, and have ever since been a subscriber with 5 radios on my plan.
Fine Tuning played artists that just didn't fit the mold of one of the other channels. Less played songs from Alan Parsons, Reniassance, Enya, Aneal, Adorney, Chris Spheeris, Gryphon, Genesis, Julee Cruise, Karl Jenkins, etc....
Where will this music go now? Probably no where.
I can't see any channel on XM's new line-up that will merge this music into their playlists.
Just as the death of XM Music lab lost lots of artists, killing Fine Tuning narrows the offerings of various artists more than any other channel lost because of the wide variety of music they played.
Is XM moving out of niche channels? Looks like it at first glance, yet they have 3 channels completely dedicated to one artist.... how niche is that?
I live in an area with FM stations that cover rock, classic rock, and classical music. These commercial stations (and non-commercial) having programming that is pretty good, and except for the commercials, they do was well as the playlists for XM on similar channels.
Will XM thrive by cutting out variety and playing music common to any terrestrial radio station? It makes little sense to me. One has to wonder if they ever held focus groups about their channel changes.
Over the 5 years, many good music channels have been lost, and interesting programming lost. You can't hear the Dr. Demento show any longer on XM, Special X was lost years ago, and don't count on seeing Special XMAS this year.
If satellite radio isn't about music variety any more, but is just terrestrial radio packaged without commercials, then I guess it's an evolution that I don't care to follow any longer.
I've got my Slacker unit, and I can get my music with my selections without having the channels lost due to XM corporate. |
Very well said. I am a big Fine Tuning fan as well, and from some of the posts in this forum, there are many others. When I signed on with XM 4 1/2 years ago, I was pretty much like every new subscriber, listening to the decades or classic rock channels. Then I stumbled upon XM76 one day and was immediately hooked. It is really what makes satellite radio different. They played pretty much everything. The DJs were pretty good too. Fine Tuning will be sorely missed! |
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daver40
Mildly Amused XM Fan
Joined: 29 Apr 2003
Posts: 12765
Location: Binghamton. NY
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johnnyfever78
Clear Channel is the Devil!
Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 6540
Location: Hank Aaron Drive
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Demian
Extreme Fan
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
Posts: 241
Location: California
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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XM, under Sirius management, is starting to resemble terrestrial radio more and more every day.
They are getting rid of all of the channels/genres that you can't get on terrestrial radio.....
Fine Tuning
Fungus
Beyond Jazz
It is so sad what they are doing! What are they thinking?
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Please help save the deeper playlists!
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aaronsnet
Frequent Listener
Joined: 24 Oct 2008
Posts: 39
Location: Tri-Cities, TN
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| rearden82 wrote: | I just rediscovered live365.com today. Unlike Pandora or Slacker, their stations are actually produced by people instead of being a glorified MP3 player. A lot of them even have live shows. I came across a few excellent eclectic and prog-rock stations already.
I'll keep XM in my car; I don't think Sirius can make it as bad as terrestrial radio (although they're sure as hell trying!), but I'll probably be ditching my office subscription in favor of live365. I hope that I'm pleasantly surprised, but the Siriusization of most channels and the loss of XMX and Fine Tuning makes for a very bad first impression. |
A great alternative is http://www.shoutcast.com -- there are thousands of stations programed by real people.
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curator of: the detour (freeform radio without boundaries)
http://thedetour.us (member of http://noncorporate.org)
-XM subscriber for 1 year
fan of POTUS, BBC, Fine Tuning, the System, & XMU (2 Audiovox Xpress, 1 Audiovox Xpress-EZ) |
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johnnyfever78
Clear Channel is the Devil!
Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 6540
Location: Hank Aaron Drive
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Demian wrote: | XM, under Sirius management, is starting to resemble terrestrial radio more and more every day.
They are getting rid of all of the channels/genres that you can't get on terrestrial radio.....
Fine Tuning
Fungus
Beyond Jazz
It is so sad what they are doing! What are they thinking? |
They are thinkin that 90% of the country doesnt prefer eclectic music. And they are right! I am sorry I have had XM since Aug 2003. Fine Tuning was a waste of bandwith IMO! The other day they were playin King of Pain by The Police. You can hear that on 3 other channels.
A waste of an HD channel anyway. Deep Tracks should be HD. Arbys prove it.
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MNXMFan
RIP XM, you will be missed!
Joined: 01 Nov 2002
Posts: 1053
Location: Twin Cities, MN
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| johnnyfever78 wrote: | | Demian wrote: | XM, under Sirius management, is starting to resemble terrestrial radio more and more every day.
They are getting rid of all of the channels/genres that you can't get on terrestrial radio.....
Fine Tuning
Fungus
Beyond Jazz
It is so sad what they are doing! What are they thinking? |
They are thinkin that 90% of the country doesnt prefer eclectic music. And they are right! I am sorry I have had XM since Aug 2003. Fine Tuning was a waste of bandwith IMO! The other day they were playin King of Pain by The Police. You can hear that on 3 other channels.
A waste of an HD channel anyway. Deep Tracks should be HD. Arbys prove it. |
If you think THATS bad, just wait until you catch the crossover of Sirius rock channels. Many channels playing much of the same music. |
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johnnyfever78
Clear Channel is the Devil!
Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 6540
Location: Hank Aaron Drive
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| MNXMFan wrote: | | johnnyfever78 wrote: | | Demian wrote: | XM, under Sirius management, is starting to resemble terrestrial radio more and more every day.
They are getting rid of all of the channels/genres that you can't get on terrestrial radio.....
Fine Tuning
Fungus
Beyond Jazz
It is so sad what they are doing! What are they thinking? |
They are thinkin that 90% of the country doesnt prefer eclectic music. And they are right! I am sorry I have had XM since Aug 2003. Fine Tuning was a waste of bandwith IMO! The other day they were playin King of Pain by The Police. You can hear that on 3 other channels.
A waste of an HD channel anyway. Deep Tracks should be HD. Arbys prove it. |
If you think THATS bad, just wait until you catch the crossover of Sirius rock channels. Many channels playing much of the same music. |
Have them already
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kgb
Addicted Listener
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 125
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| johnnyfever78 wrote: |
They are thinkin that 90% of the country doesnt prefer eclectic music. And they are right! I am sorry I have had XM since Aug 2003. Fine Tuning was a waste of bandwith IMO! The other day they were playin King of Pain by The Police. You can hear that on 3 other channels.
A waste of an HD channel anyway. Deep Tracks should be HD. Arbys prove it. |
I could never anticipate what Fine Tuning would play.... yes there might be a song, like from the Beatles, that you could hear on another channel. There were some really weird things on the channel, for example the Gong Orchestra, which was just awful. But the next piece would be great, and that's what kept many folks coming back for more.
Maybe eclectic music was for a small 10% minority, but when the Arbitron ratings were published (and linked on XMFAN), Fine Tuning was as poorly rated as many of the other music channels.... no better, but certainly no worse.... and yet those other channels are still on the channel line-up, and probably will still have as poor listenership as Fine Tuning had.
Fine Tuning offered a place to hear music that wasn't covered on any other main stream music channel, and that's what made it different.
At one point, XM was proclaiming that iFT was one of their "HD Channels" (big deal, how many people have the receivers capable of decoding that surround sound?) but now I see that only the Classical Pops channel is HD. I guess that aspect of the old XM is also being phased out. Too bad for the people that bought special receivers.
I enjoy Deep Tracks also, and yes, maybe some of these artists from FT's playlists can get moved over to other channels, but from past experience when XM Music Labs died, so did the music that was played on that channel.
Nevertheless, XM is like Baskin & Robins. They sell a product, and they rotate their product line. If Baskin & Robins drops your favorite flavor of ice cream, you'll quit going there. XM/Sirius will have to see how well their programming decisions have served them, and whether their audience goes on to other technologies.
Last edited by kgb on Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:30 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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johnnyfever78
Clear Channel is the Devil!
Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 6540
Location: Hank Aaron Drive
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | enjoy Deep Tracks also, and yes, maybe some of these artists can get moved over to other channels, but from past experience when XM Music Labs died, so did the music that was played on that channel. |
Some of it will be back tonight when Jam On shows up 
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CafeSSJ
Moderator
Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 27546
Location: Coming To A Theater Near You
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| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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Punk, too. On Faction.
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