I’m Totally Sirius!

Last November my husband took pity on me and gave me a Sirius satellite radio receiver for my car. I had become increasingly disgusted with the quality of broadcast radio in Atlanta. I’m originally from New York (see Red State, Blue State…), and was used to a wide variety of radio stations.

Not that I have anything but the most pedestrian of tastes in music. I’m a classic rock/oldies/Lite-FM kind of gal. I was also a huge Howard Stern listener since 1994. So when I made the move south, I suffered. The Stern Show is not available on any station in Atlanta and my other choices were limited. For awhile I found some replacements. I actually listened to Imus in the Morning for awhile during my morning commute just to give me some New Yorkness. Plus he would have Chris Russo from WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog Show on sometimes. I was also a regular listener of that show in NY and would switch from Howard to WFAN-AM. But Imus got replaced by a local sports show called Mayhem in the AM. They weren’t bad, one of the DJs was from Boston and another from Long Island (where I grew up), and so they talked about the Yankees a lot. But I think they got pressure from the station and started covering mostly college football and NASCAR (even though they admitted they needed a NASCAR tutor).

I found an oldies station, originally 105.1 FM with Randy and Spiff. They got canned one day and moved to 105.3, which then went Spanish language (I still have my alarm clock go off to that station, even though I don’t know what they are saying). There was one classic rock station at 92.9, but they went to the Dave-FM format, which in case you don’t know, is a DJ-less eclectic array of songs mostly in the classic rock format. But it was too diverse for me. Plus the ads for it with the monotone voice always made me feel as if the station was programmed by Hal from 2001. ‘I’m going to play something from the Who, Dave’. Too spooky.

So by last fall, I was desperate. It wasn’t just the lack of good stations. It was the constant commercials, the endless cloned news and weather. But mostly it was the inane DJ chatter and the forced group discussions about American Idol or The Apprentice, two television shows I couldn’t care less about. In my 45 minute commute I would be lucky to hear one or two good songs.

So when Sirius announced that Howard Stern would be joining then in 2006 and had a $50 rebate offer on equipment, I jumped. It was my Christmas present from my husband. He researched all the receivers and decided on the Audiovox model. The receiver is portable and I could take it out if I decided to get the boom box or home kit. It was $99 with a $50 rebate, plus I had to get the auto adaptor kit. This allows you to wirelessly link the Sirius receiver to your existing car radio so the sound will come out the speakers. If I had to do it all over again, I would splurge for an entire new car radio with a Sirius receiver included. We had to resort to crazy gluing the auto adaptor to my dashboard because the adhesive pad the kit provided would not stick. Not to mention the wires hanging all over the place. You also have to put a magnetic antenna on your roof and run the wire into the receiver (I had mine snaked through the rear window, trunk, floor and up onto the windshield to the dash). The cool thing is you can then collapse your normal AM/FM antenna because you will not need it.

I signed up for the 12 month subscription because it is the most cost effective. I paid $142.50 for 11 months and got one month free. A few clicks on the internet and you are ready to go.

There are several very cool things about satellite radio. The first and foremost is that the music channels are virtually commercial free (for someone who worked in advertising for 25 years, I really have bitten the hand that fed me so well). There are some promos, but that’s about it. Also no news or weather, there are separate stations for that. The talk radio stations of course have commercial breaks, (hey, the DJs have to pee too!) But many of the talk shows are UNCENSORED. That’s right…UNCENSORED! I’ll never get over the shock the first time I tuned into The Radiochick and heard the F word! There is one station called Raw Dog, which is supposed to be just that. I haven’t tuned it yet, but it might be fun. And I can’t wait to hear Howard uncensored.

Another really cool thing about Sirius is that once you are a paid subscriber, you can listen over the internet. Many of the satellite radio receivers will not work unless you have a clear view of the SW sky, so that leaves out any cubicles in an office building. But if you have internet access and earphones, you are all set.

The music selections are grouped into categories. As I said, my tastes are pretty bland. I have most of my favorites as presets on my receiver.

#1     60’s Vibrations
#2     Classic Vinyl (I love the scratch needle to record sound effect they play at the beginning of each song..)
#3     Totally 70’s (Barry Williams from The Brady Bunch is one of the DJs.)
#4     Big 80’s (Madonna is still Queen here.)
#5     Starlite (similar to lite-fm)
#6     Movin’ Easy (Soft and easy favorites from the '60s, '70s and '80s.)
#7     Sirius Love
#8     Sirius Gold (50s)
#9     Talk Central
#10     The Bridge (softer contemporary rock)

Because I’m mostly in the pop category, I have noticed that a title will be recycled through out the stations. I can hear xxx on 60s vibrations and then the same on Sirius Love, if it is a love song or perhaps on Movin’ Easy. The 70s station has something called Jukebox from Hell, which features songs that were awful and played to death on the radio back in the day. It is so bad, it is good, and brings back lots of memories that maybe would be better forgotten. It actually helped me identify the extremely annoying tune the neighborhood ice cream truck played this summer, Musicbox Dancer.

I should also mention that another cool feature is that all of the song titles/artists and in some cases, year are all displayed on the screen of the receiver. I can’t tell you how many times I had the distinct impression that a song was performed by one artist but it was another. Good for Trivial Pursuit!

If you must listen to news, they have a full array of cable news stations. But it is mostly the TV feed and can be distracting without the picture. You can get local traffic and weather by ‘jumping’ to that station. The traffic/weather stations are shared by 2 cities, so you may have to wait. Atlanta shares with Boston. So I press the jump button, and when the traffic/weather switches to Atlanta, it jumps in.

The news stations have come in handy when there is a breaking story. On the day the Michael Jackson verdict came out, I was driving home and tuned right into Court TV and heard it live. I also listened to Fox News on my drive in the morning of the London bombings. For some reason the TV news channels don’t work over the internet, probably some kind of black out.

But the best by far is driving in your car, tuning to a station and getting back to back to back songs that you love with no commercials. There are some days where I will have the tuner set to Totally 70s and just sing all the way to work and not have to change stations. There are so many different genres to choose from. There is an all Elvis station. There is Christian music. Hip Hop, Rap, Jazz, Country R&R/Urban, even Classical and Latin.

There is conservative talk, and liberal talk. There is a new Martha Stewart channel coming in September. There are all sorts of sports stations, including coverage of all the NFL games, from both team’s broadcasters. College Football, NBA, NHL Hockey, Soccer etc. Satellite radio is becoming a favorite of truckers. And when we rented a car on a recent trip from New York to New Hampshire, we made sure we had Sirius on board. A complete list of stations can be seen here.

And I have to mention the DJs. When there is a break in the music, the DJs name will appear. I was stunned to see Pat St. John on the screen one day. Pat was a staple on the old rock oriented WPLJ-FM back in the 70s-80s. (I’ll still never forget my shock one day when I came to work, tuned in PLJ and heard pop music. It was, to me, the beginning of the end of FM radio). Carole Miller also of PLJ is also here. Dennis Elsas who was on WNEW-FM is on too.

Sirius also picked up Cousin Brucie Morrow, who was a staple of WCBS-FM, which was the ever present oldies station in New York for as long as I can remember. (CBS recently ended the oldies format). Morrow hosts an oldies show from the Rock and Roll Hall of fame three times a week.

Sirius recently added old MTV VJs, Martha Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter and now Martha Quinn to the Big 80s station. I was never a big MTV fan and Alan Hunter talks way too much. I actually screamed at the radio the other day while he was yakking over the intro to a song.

Even with that, it is hard to find fault with Sirius. It is a vast improvement over local radio stations. Since I used to work in advertising, I have kept up with what is going on with the media. The merging of media conglomerates and the take over of local radio stations by outfits such as Clear Channel has ruined it. I know the politically correct thing to say is that it is a vast republican right wing capitalist scheme to control news and information. But I know it is all about streamlining costs (for news and other services) and trying to tie up advertising dollars. But what it has done is made radio very bland and repetitive. The DJs try to talk up the parent companies TV shows by pretending they watch and worse, actually like the shows and try to build up viewer ship. It is so blatantly obvious it make me sick. The other thing they do is plug other radio stations in the same market! Hey, if you like our station, you might also like WKKK 88.7 FM! Unheard of. Radio stations have been losing listeners and ad dollars in droves. They are now attempting to win back listeners by having exclusive deals with some artists. But I don’t see it helping.

The other advantage Sirius has is that it is NOT controlled by the FCC. Since it doesn’t go out over public airways, they can pretty much do whatever they want. Hence the uncensored talk. I do think the FCC will try to get their puritanical little hands on it as they are attempting to do with cable TV, but they are in for a fight on that score.

So if you are tired of spending your morning commute switching stations to find what you like and are on the fence about investing, I am here to tell you that it is worth it.

Now, if Sirius could only do something about the traffic……