Five channels to be axed and five to be added; my personal opinions on the changes, FWIW
Okay, I stand corrected -- at first, I thought that possibly nothing would get the axe, and then I realized Sirius Advice was an endangered species.
Now it looks like Sirius is axing five streams in order to add five streams. Fortunately, in my own opinion (and I do realize opinions are like noses, everybody has one), the changes overall will amount to a mild (not major) improvement.
Unlike past channel shuffles, it looks like I'm not likely to miss the five channels being axed. Maybe I was missing something but I never listened much to any of them... I felt I had no use for EWTN and seldom tuned into Sirius Right or Mexicana either. (However, with the Hispanic music channels, I keep having the nagging, faint thought in the back of my mind that maybe I'm missing something.) Also, Sirius had two right-wing talk channels (Sirius Right and Patriot) and only one stream devoted solely to left-wing talk (Sirius Left), so this may help balance things out a little better. (I still think Sirius ought to consider doing a collaboration with Pacifica, but that may be off-topic.)
I did tune into Sirius Advice whilst channel surfing the other night and heard a woman chatting about somewhat unusual food combinations, like pretzels and candy or something. Cute but not absolutely essential IMHO.
Regarding the new channels, in my own personal opinion, all five of the streams are worth checking out.
I was going to say that there are no automatic "home runs" amongst the new channels, but then I thought of Cosmo, which might come close . We'll see ... I'll admit the girly-girl in me has been wanting to check out Cosmo Radio after Sirius adds it, an impression reinforced by the description over at Sirius's official explanation page regarding the forthcoming changes. (Okay, that's not the news junkie in me reacting, but, hey, I guess I'm multi-faceted.) ;-)
It's too early for me to say that I'll regularly tune in to Cosmo or that it'll make one of my presets (there's STIFF competition for those buttons!) but I definitely plan on giving it a listen.
Some listeners are probably going to find that kind of station to be too shallow. But speaking for myself, while I like, say, dance stations like Area 33 and 36 The Beat, I don't turn them on when I want to find out (for example) what Dubya is up to or the latest on the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan... The same would go for Cosmo (as with those dance stations), but I think there's a place for it nevertheless and I look forward to checking it out.
Cosmo aside, the part of me that thinks figures I'd probably do well to give Fox News another chance; the same attitude applies to Fox News Talk (although I haven't heard that before); and while I haven't heard a lot of Jeff Foxworthy's material, what I have heard tells me the man can be funny, making Blue Collar Comedy worth a listen as well.
As for Playboy, I'll be surprised if it becomes a big hit with me, but I'm at least going to give it a listen. I'll admit to being curious ... I did read earlier posts opining that Playboy stunk over at XM, but remember that old saw about opinions and noses ... Also, as I said in an email to Sirius, I'm not a prude and I don't have kids with "virgin ears" to protect. ;-)
In sum (as I said up above), I think these changes will be good, on the whole.
One more thing. I'd thought one could opt-in to Playboy via email or phone, but the Sirius explanation page says listeners will opt-in via phone and says nothing about email. So, would email work?
http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=FlexContent&cid=1141756801108
