SiriusXM Love Preemptions

[John FL]

I really enjoy listening to SiriusXM's "Love." There's a large library that spans at least 5 decades. However, this station/genre gets replaced periodically throughout the year with other formats such as Christmas formatting and Yacht Rock Radio. The latter is simply awful. The music is repetitive and there's a narrow time period of songs featured. The voice image guy is made to sound like Thurston Howell III from the old Gilligan's Island TV show. I can't listen to it for any good length of time.

In the Florida board in a "Measuring Audience" string, I asked if SiriusXM has a way of determining the popularity of their various channels. The answer I got revolved around their doing their own internal feedback solicitation such as through subscriber surveys etc. But this was an educated guess as to how they measure listening and not actual knowledge. Are way saying "Love" doesn't have enough listening to justify these disruptions?

Just as in commercial radio formats, some go all Christmas during the holidays and many times this is a tradition. I have less of an issue with that than the Yacht Rock replacement for all summer. If commercial radio preempted a format as much as SiriusXM does in the Love example, that format would appear doomed.

 

[CTListener]

I really enjoy listening to SiriusXM's "Love." There's a large library that spans at least 5 decades. However, this station/genre gets replaced periodically throughout the year with other formats such as Christmas formatting and Yacht Rock Radio. The latter is simply awful. The music is repetitive and there's a narrow time period of songs featured. The voice image guy is made to sound like Thurston Howell III from the old Gilligan's Island TV show. I can't listen to it for any good length of time.

In the Florida board in a "Measuring Audience" string, I asked if SiriusXM has a way of determining the popularity of their various channels. The answer I got revolved around their doing their own internal feedback solicitation such as through subscriber surveys etc. But this was an educated guess as to how they measure listening and not actual knowledge. Are way saying "Love" doesn't have enough listening to justify these disruptions?

Just as in commercial radio formats, some go all Christmas during the holidays and many times this is a tradition. I have less of an issue with that than the Yacht Rock replacement for all summer. If commercial radio preempted a format as much as SiriusXM does in the Love example, that format would appear doomed.

SiriusXM uses listener surveys and also monitors online listening to each channel. The first two times Yacht Rock Radio debuted, it took over Channel 30, which then was the deep-eclectic channel The Loft. Soon after the second spell of RTR, it became what critics of SXM call a "payola channel" -- Hotel California Radio, a bought-and-paid-for channel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the classic Eagles album, with Eagles' label and/or management paying SXM for the channel for a limited run. What happened after that was that The Loft never came back, being relegated to online only and eventually stripped of all of its air staff, becoming a sterile random jukebox. Channel 30 is now the home of an endless series of payola channels promoting artists or bands that have significant new releases and tours to hype.

Will Love go the same route? Probably not, since it runs jockless and costs SXM nothing but the royalties on the music it plays. But the addition of a Road Trip preemption to the annual slop bucket of saccharine Christmas treacle it carries is not a good sign.

 

[Gregg.]

I can see why someone would miss Sirius XM Love. There really isn't a channel that plays the soft songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I happen to like Yacht Rock but I guess it can get repetitive, since there are only so many songs in the category. The Bridge is a good channel, but it only plays the Soft Rock songs of the same era, not pop artists that would be heard on Love. There's some cross over with The Bridge and Yacht Rock but only about 50%.

John is right that Channel 70 does get switched frequently. Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day for Yacht Rock. Late November and December for Christmas music. And I think Yacht Rock makes a one week appearance in winter as well.

 

[CTListener]

I can see why someone would miss Sirius XM Love. There really isn't a channel that plays the soft songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I happen to like Yacht Rock but I guess it can get repetitive, since there are only so many songs in the category. The Bridge is a good channel, but it only plays the Soft Rock songs of the same era, not pop artists that would be heard on Love. There's some cross over with The Bridge and Yacht Rock but only about 50%.

John is right that Channel 70 does get switched frequently. Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day for Yacht Rock. Late November and December for Christmas music. And I think Yacht Rock makes a one week appearance in winter as well.

I recently heard a promo -- during a baseball game, believe it or not -- for a Pavarotti Channel, featuring the tenor's recorded repertoire. But SXM isn't pre-empting either Met Opera Radio (the logical choice, especially since the Met itself is on summer break) or Symphony Hall. Instead, it is pushing a paid-for channel, Kidz Bop (77), to the sidelines. This is very unusual, and has me wondering if the Kidz Bop contract has run out and the Pavarotti Channel is the first step in making Channel 77 into another dedicated pop-up channel or if Pops might be coming back to the basic lineup.

 

[John FL]

SiriusXM uses listener surveys and also monitors online listening to each channel. The first two times Yacht Rock Radio debuted, it took over Channel 30, which then was the deep-eclectic channel The Loft. Soon after the second spell of RTR, it became what critics of SXM call a "payola channel" -- Hotel California Radio, a bought-and-paid-for channel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the classic Eagles album, with Eagles' label and/or management paying SXM for the channel for a limited run. What happened after that was that The Loft never came back, being relegated to online only and eventually stripped of all of its air staff, becoming a sterile random jukebox. Channel 30 is now the home of an endless series of payola channels promoting artists or bands that have significant new releases and tours to hype.

Will Love go the same route? Probably not, since it runs jockless and costs SXM nothing but the royalties on the music it plays. But the addition of a Road Trip preemption to the annual slop bucket of saccharine Christmas treacle it carries is not a good sign.

Thanks for the info on the listener surveys and the online monitoring. I figured they had to do something like that to determine channel performance. Still, I scratch my head and wonder why Love has experienced so many disruptions.

In addition, I can't recall the channel number but Love was lower on the dial so to speak before they were moved to the current Ch 70. In my mind, it seems the more popular channels are in the lower channel numbers. I've noticed SiriusXM like to group like formats together and maybe that's what they did here. For example, the adjacent ch 71 is Siriusly Sinatra featuring standards artists with of course the focus on Sinatra. I could be wrong but that channel, that I check out on occasion, seems to be left alone.

Among the reasons I chose to subscribe is because I felt there were no 25-54 concerns. They've got a 40s music channel in the lineup and a few obviously older leaning formats. Love, on the other hand, while it focuses on 70s and 80s soft hits, also plays 90s and even this century tunes. Sometimes, they go way back even to the 50s with tunes such as Everly Brothers "Dream" or Johnny Mathis' "Misty." Talk about variety!

Still, something just doesn't seem logical to me in how this channel is on and off again. I consider Love's playlist and the positioning of the songs very well done. I acknowledge this is personal taste but still I don't get it.

 

[John FL]

I can see why someone would miss Sirius XM Love. There really isn't a channel that plays the soft songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I happen to like Yacht Rock but I guess it can get repetitive, since there are only so many songs in the category. The Bridge is a good channel, but it only plays the Soft Rock songs of the same era, not pop artists that would be heard on Love. There's some cross over with The Bridge and Yacht Rock but only about 50%.

John is right that Channel 70 does get switched frequently. Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day for Yacht Rock. Late November and December for Christmas music. And I think Yacht Rock makes a one week appearance in winter as well.

Yes, Love is unique among lots of channel that do have music overlap. I do listen to the Bridge and feel it's presented better than Yacht Rock. To your point about Love's preemptions, I do recall Yacht Rock appeared during the winter and that made no sense but I think it represented the rich who cruise in tropical places then...who knows really? In the last holiday season, Love became the Hallmark Channel but this happened in early November and they continued playing Christmas tunes after Christmas for a few days.

Very disruptive.

 

[JBraddock]

I sometimes wonder if the SiriusXM brass have a clue about listener preferences. It's easy to determine who's streaming what, but the over-the-satellite radios have no feedback loops, so surveys have to suffice.

The biggest gaff was the removal of Easy Listening Escape from the satellites in 2015 when programmer Marlin Taylor retired. I predicted, based on my family's use of our then-5 radios, that that decision would be quickly reversed, which it was. That they were clueless enough to misjudge how many subscribers were Escape P1s was telling.

Losing The Loft from the car satellite line-up was tough. It was a well-programmed channel with several personalities who enhanced the music, but money is money. BTW, The Loft is still decent, even on mostly autopilot, streaming on Channel 710. It's certainly better than the mess that is Spectrum (28).

Yacht Rock is too tightly playlisted. Try Soma FM's Left Coast 70s to hear a better version of the format.

SiriusXM doesn't even promote its preemptions very well. If it weren't for the XMFan forum, I wouldn't have a clue as to what Channels 4 and 30 are doing, and since they're no longer presets, I don't stop by randomly. Apparently all that slop isn't deterring the growth of car listeners.

As an XM subscriber since 2003, I know the extent to which the programming has deteriorated. Satellite radio is becoming another lowest common denominator band. Hopefully there will still be room among the 200 satellite channels for a Deep Tracks or two. Without preemptions.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Thanks for the info on the listener surveys and the online monitoring. I figured they had to do something like that to determine channel performance. Still, I scratch my head and wonder why Love has experienced so many disruptions.

In addition, I can't recall the channel number but Love was lower on the dial so to speak before they were moved to the current Ch 70. In my mind, it seems the more popular channels are in the lower channel numbers. I've noticed SiriusXM like to group like formats together and maybe that's what they did here. For example, the adjacent ch 71 is Siriusly Sinatra featuring standards artists with of course the focus on Sinatra. I could be wrong but that channel, that I check out on occasion, seems to be left alone.

Among the reasons I chose to subscribe is because I felt there were no 25-54 concerns. They've got a 40s music channel in the lineup and a few obviously older leaning formats. Love, on the other hand, while it focuses on 70s and 80s soft hits, also plays 90s and even this century tunes. Sometimes, they go way back even to the 50s with tunes such as Everly Brothers "Dream" or Johnny Mathis' "Misty." Talk about variety!

Still, something just doesn't seem logical to me in how this channel is on and off again. I consider Love's playlist and the positioning of the songs very well done. I acknowledge this is personal taste but still I don't get it.

I think, could be wrong, that Love was once on channel 17, where it sort of flowed out of the soft rock Blend at 16. Now 17 is Pop Rocks (a personal favorite, so I'm cool with that). Last holiday season was interesting with Love giving way to Hallmark instead of Holly. Now Hallmark has reappeared, albeit for wedding songs, down where Holly had set up last year.

I've never cared for Love, nor the Blend. I'll enjoy a song or two, and then something that drives me insane pops up and I'm gone.

 

[John FL]

I sometimes wonder if the SiriusXM brass have a clue about listener preferences. It's easy to determine who's streaming what, but the over-the-satellite radios have no feedback loops, so surveys have to suffice.

The biggest gaff was the removal of Easy Listening Escape from the satellites in 2015 when programmer Marlin Taylor retired. I predicted, based on my family's use of our then-5 radios, that that decision would be quickly reversed, which it was. That they were clueless enough to misjudge how many subscribers were Escape P1s was telling.

Losing The Loft from the car satellite line-up was tough. It was a well-programmed channel with several personalities who enhanced the music, but money is money. BTW, The Loft is still decent, even on mostly autopilot, streaming on Channel 710. It's certainly better than the mess that is Spectrum (28).

Yacht Rock is too tightly playlisted. Try Soma FM's Left Coast 70s to hear a better version of the format.

SiriusXM doesn't even promote its preemptions very well. If it weren't for the XMFan forum, I wouldn't have a clue as to what Channels 4 and 30 are doing, and since they're no longer presets, I don't stop by randomly. Apparently all that slop isn't deterring the growth of car listeners.

As an XM subscriber since 2003, I know the extent to which the programming has deteriorated. Satellite radio is becoming another lowest common denominator band. Hopefully there will still be room among the 200 satellite channels for a Deep Tracks or two. Without preemptions.

Excellent analysis. Thank you.

As far as listener preferences go, I would think this is done more in groupings than anything else. I have no idea how many channels are available on SiriusXM but talk about fragmentation! So, without beating a dead horse, it's perplexing to me that with a multi-decade channel that is built around the central theme of love isn't just left alone. There is a certain uniqueness to the channel, all things considered. Because of the sheer number of music channels, song/artist overlap is an inevitable situation. One of the previous posters put the overlap at 50% between Yacht Rock and The Bridge. He seemed fine with that. I take issue with it. I totally agree with you that Yacht Rock is too tightly playlisted.

So again, why the Love preemptions? There may be justification we can't figure here or it could be a whopper of an error.

 

[John FL]

I think, could be wrong, that Love was once on channel 17, where it sort of flowed out of the soft rock Blend at 16. Now 17 is Pop Rocks (a personal favorite, so I'm cool with that). Last holiday season was interesting with Love giving way to Hallmark instead of Holly. Now Hallmark has reappeared, albeit for wedding songs, down where Holly had set up last year.

I've never cared for Love, nor the Blend. I'll enjoy a song or two, and then something that drives me insane pops up and I'm gone.

I believe you are right about Love being once on Ch 17. I recall that preset and it brought back memories of a public school I attended as a kid - PS 17. I make associations like that all the time. It's how my brain works.

The fact that you don't care much for Love is a personal decision. Who among us loves every song on any given station whether we are talking about satellite radio or an FM station. I mostly enjoy the channels on SiriusXM where the music is significantly different from what is available on terrestrial radio. There's still lots I haven't experienced but a pet peeve is disruptions.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

What if Love is really disrupting Yacht Rock? That's only half facetious. If you ran Hallmark (or even Holly) for the approximately 2 months of Jingle Bell season, could Yacht Rock just occupy the slot for 10 months? If the springtime Hallmark thing works out, it could move there and be another filler.

There has to be enough data for them to base decisions on, even if we're not privy to it. No one is infallible, of course, but I also don't think people are making decisions without a rational basis. Does Pop Rocks fit better in that Blend-Pulse popish neighborhood? It symbolically seems to sit where its name suggests--between their general sections. Maybe that fit the strategy better than Love sitting there.

It could always be worse, perhaps....Love could have been banished to streaming only. Change seems to be a constant.

 

[CTListener]

Meanwhile, SiriusXM has just pimped out another channel to the highest bidder. "Jam On," which has programmed a full spectrum of "jam band" music for years, will now be Phish Radio, devoted to promoting the recordings and live shows of one band, with any songs by other artists being played only during specialty shows hosted by band members. Jam On will be relegated to online-only. Sirius XM also has a Grateful Dead Channel (permanent) and a limited-engagement Dave Matthews Band Channel, so all the top-selling acts in the genre now have saturation exposure on satellite radio, to the nearly complete exclusion of all other bands.

I suppose, as a classic country fan, I should be grateful that Willie Nelson's songs are only played a couple of times an hour on his branded Willie's Place channel. DJ Dallas Wayne always gives him due respect by introducing just about every Nelson song played the same way: "Here's another one from the boss."

Makes me puke, but apparently this is the only way the suits have decided they can make commercial-free music channels attractive to their investors by contributing to the corporate bottom line.

 

[FrankF]

Meanwhile, SiriusXM has just pimped out another channel to the highest bidder. "Jam On," which has programmed a full spectrum of "jam band" music for years, will now be Phish Radio, devoted to promoting the recordings and live shows of one band, with any songs by other artists being played only during specialty shows hosted by band members. Jam On will be relegated to online-only. Sirius XM also has a Grateful Dead Channel (permanent) and a limited-engagement Dave Matthews Band Channel, so all the top-selling acts in the genre now have saturation exposure on satellite radio, to the nearly complete exclusion of all other bands.

I suppose, as a classic country fan, I should be grateful that Willie Nelson's songs are only played a couple of times an hour on his branded Willie's Place channel. DJ Dallas Wayne always gives him due respect by introducing just about every Nelson song played the same way: "Here's another one from the boss."

Makes me puke, but apparently this is the only way the suits have decided they can make commercial-free music channels attractive to their investors by contributing to the corporate bottom line.

They do the same thing with Ozzy's Boneyard. I like an Ozzy or Black Sabbath song every now and then, but not what it seems like every 15 minutes. They have a somewhat decent playlist, and I'd like to listen to it longer but I have to turn it just about every time one of those songs comes on. I don't know what Sirius is paying him to use his name on that channel, but come on.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Makes me puke, but apparently this is the only way the suits have decided they can make commercial-free music channels attractive to their investors by contributing to the corporate bottom line.

"The suits"'s very job is to contribute to the bottom line. As are most people in most jobs in for-profit enterprise.

 

[TheBigA]

"The suits"'s very job is to contribute to the bottom line. As are most people in most jobs in for-profit enterprise.

Unlike other for profit enterprises, they seem immune from staff cuts. They haven't really consolidated their facilities around the country.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Some things work to their advantage. Have they cut on-air talent? I seem to recall 90s on 9 went through a reduction, and only recently added Julie Brown on a daily basis again. Could be wrong....could be very, very wrong.

 

[Ai4i]

I did not listen to The Bridge until our local airport replaced the blend with it and I dedicated a preset to it.
They offer very similar mellow pop-rock.

 

[CTListener]

Some things work to their advantage. Have they cut on-air talent? I seem to recall 90s on 9 went through a reduction, and only recently added Julie Brown on a daily basis again. Could be wrong....could be very, very wrong.

It's impossible for outsiders to know who's full-time, who's part-time and who's just doing occasional work as a side hustle from their job in "real" radio. Some hosts are in New York, some (XM holdovers) work in Washington, still others get the luxury of literally "phoning it in" -- voicetracking air shifts from home studios: Meg Griffin (Deep Tracks, Classic Vinyl) from suburban Boston, Martin Goldsmith (Symphony Hall) from Montana), etc.I hear Lauren Rico on WSHU Fairfield, CT for three hours live before she puts in a voicetracked 6-hour marathon shift on Symphony Hall. I believe she works at WQXR in NYC as well, so I'm sure much more of her time is devoted to her terrestrial employer than to the voicetracking on SXM, a shift for which she doesn't even have to sit through all the pieces she plays waiting to talk.

I believe SXM has also given several of its program directors additional channels to look after, which might also mean staff cuts.

The one area that apparently is safe from layoffs is SXM's mind-boggling collection of voiceover talents. Every channel seems to have an imaging "voice" or two -- people who sound like slackers for the alt and '90s channels, people who sound distinctly African-American for the NBA channel, a guy who sounds like the legendary NFL Films announcer John Facenda forr the NFL channel. (Although when the NFL held its draft in Nashville this past spring, they found two stereotypical "hick" voiceover guys to do a cringeworthy "I'm a pickin' and I'm a grinnin'" routine promoting the channel's coverage. Oh so typical NY attitudes toward "flyover country" on proud display!) Why the company needs so many voices is beyond me.

 

[TheBigA]

The one area that apparently is safe from layoffs is SXM's mind-boggling collection of voiceover talents.

Among their people is Buzz Brainard, who for many years hosted This Week in Baseball, among his other voicing roles.

 

[CTListener]

Among their people is Buzz Brainard, who for many years hosted This Week in Baseball, among his other voicing roles.

I show my age here. The last time I watched "This Week In Baseball," Mel Allen was voicing it. Did Brainard succeed Allen?

The most amazing vocal talent they have is a guy named Ryan something, who apparently was selected to read the game schedule on the low-bitrate play-by-play channels for his nasal, shrill voice. He sounds like a honking goose, but it's just the kind of voice that's needed so your words don't sound like mush when you're reading copy like "At 8 p.m., it's the Red Sox and the Twins. Twins feed Sirius 94, XM 192, Red Sox feed online only at XM 818, Sirius 222." How to get a job in radio even if you don't have a voice for radio!