Xm radio voice-over announcements interrupt their audio classical music channels when mindlessly repeated on DirecTV audio channels.
by James K. Sayre
Xm radio has been foisted off onto DirecTV watchers and listeners by an inept management decision of DirecTV in November, 2005. The thirty or so audio channel offerings on DirecTV from "music choice channel" were dropped one morning and replaced by xm radio offerings.
DirecTV's audio music channel offerings have taken a giant step backwards from the original "music choice channel" (www.musicchoice.com) to "xm satellite radio" offerings. On the thirty or so music choice channels available on DirecTV, they just played their music with the on-screen descriptions.
Now with xm radio, we are forced to endure periodic voice-over talk-over announcements every few minutes from xm radio telling us that we are listening to yes, gasp, xm radio and isn't xm radio really wonderful... huh?
This inept management decision by DirecTV has severely degraded the audio music listening experience of millions of its customers. Previously uninterrupted music is now interrupted by yak, telling us that we are listening to xm radio. How on God's green earth could xm radio customers possibly be listening to a satellite radio broadcast of xm radio except by choice? However, I can understand that DirecTV customers may not initially be aware of this information, but they will soon catch on... Unfortunately, when DirecTV customers are listening to classical music on channel 866, xm radio tells them that they are listening to xm radio on channel 113, so clearly these announcements are aimed at xm radio satellite broadcast receivers, not DirecTV customers.
The xm radio announcements and talk-overs may be tolerable if you are driving in your car and trying to keep your eyes on the road, as well you should, but if you are at home and watching or listening to DirecTV, there is plenty of on-screen information about what is currently being played on the audio channels.
DirecTV should make a concerted effort to please its millions of customers who previously enjoyed the interruption-free audio music channels previously provided by the "music choice channel." If DirecTV cannot get xm radio to alter the feeds that it provides to DirecTV and eliminate the intrusive talk-over announcements which seem to show up on every xm radio audio channel three or four times per hour, then they should offer an interruption-free music service such as that of the "music choice channel."
24 November 2005.
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Web page last updated on 24 November 2005.