According to the incredibly observant satellite-radio news site Orbitcast, the Great Sirius XM Channel Merge Of 2008 will occur on Nov. 12. Redundancies between the two former competitors will apparently be resolved that day, although a few specialty stations will remain on both services. When the merger was announced, the word was that the stations for both services would be looked at, and when there was duplication (the retro decades channels, for example), the better of the two stations would survive. For example, Sirius oldies DJ Cousin Brucie
is moving over to XM as well, which would indicate that one of XM's music-related channels will be receding into the background soon. The real question: Will Sirius's Left of Center make the cut, and will we still be able to enjoy our weekly fix of Pearl Jam b-sides and Ponytail tracks on Brooklyn Vegan's show? IF not, we might not even have time to say goodbye—indications are that the services' new lineups will be announced the day of the change. [
Orbitcast]
Idolator
Despite my wife's contention that there's never anything on and that the the Oprah channel's Dr. Oz show is poorly scheduled, I generally enjoy my Sirius subscription, which now comes with extra XM. As I've noted before, Phoenix radio is about as bad as could be imagined and I'm generally too lazy to actually bring discs into the car to listen to, so the subscription seems like a decent deal. However, given the company's recent financial news, I may end up regretting paying for six months in advance.
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While the conglomerations behind terrestrial radio stations do their best to stop the proposed XM/Sirius merger, the still-separate satellite radio providers look they might be in a bit of financial trouble.
