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XM Programming News (Canada/Lex and Terry)

L

LuckyStrike

Guest
XM launched the Canadian Channels today and they are:

Channel - Name - Genre - Description
Ch 52 - (un)Signed - Rock - New/Emerging Rock from Canada
Ch 100 - Air Musique - World - New & Emerging Music - Broadcast in French
Ch 102 - Sur La Route - World - Pop Hits Broadcast in French
Ch 153 - Laugh Attack - Comedy - Uncensored Comedy
Ch 172 - Franc Parler - News - Sports & More - Broadcast in French
Ch 204 - Home Ice - Sports - NHL Talk and Play-by-Play
Ch 244 - Canada 360 - News - News & Information
Ch 245 - Quoi de Neuf - News - News & Information - Broadcast in French

From xmradio.com :

Lex & Terry - Extreme - XM 152 - New Show
Begins November 28, 2005 - Weekdays 1-4PM ET

The Lex & Terry Show, a popular nationally syndicated morning radio program, delivers a unique blend of lifestyle advice, humor and on-air community, especially for men. Irreverent hosts Lex Staley and Terry Jaymes have grown the show in four short years from a single market in Jacksonville, Fl., into a thriving network spanning more than 25 cities, and now it comes to XM.

Please note that G. Gordon Liddy will be temporarily off the air for the month of December but will return to XM on January 2nd on ASK - XM 165 from 10AM - 12PM ET. <P ID="signature">______________
And boom goes the dynomite.</P>
 
Canadian Channels are on air now

Canada 360 has that craptastic traffic and weather codec, but Laugh Attack and Home Ice has decent audio.<P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, and San Diego boards...</P>
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> Canada 360 has that craptastic traffic and weather codec,
> but Laugh Attack and Home Ice has decent audio.
>
I am quite mad about the Murders of CH's 100&102, I guess they will get some Subscribers from Canada,but I will most likely cancel service Monday.
This is a backwards move.XM seems to want to be the same as TERRAD except without commercials.
I was thinking about Sirius,but then decided to get DSL and stream instead.
I am very sad ,I liked XM a lot but it has been wrecked now!
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> I am quite mad about the Murders of CH's 100&102, I guess
> they will get some Subscribers from Canada,but I will most
> likely cancel service Monday.

Well, you can always stream 100 and 102. Those formats aren't going away; Worldspace programs them for distribution outside North America, and XM will continue to run those feeds online.

Considering what XM had to do to make the CRTC happy, the changes made were about the best they could do given the bandwith they've got. If losing World Zone and Ngoma make you that angry, cancel, but I really doubt if they're going to lose more Ngoma fans than they'll gain in Canadian subscriptions, especially with NHL games in the lineup.

I do hope that once the radios are on sale in Canada they'll bother updating Canada 360 more often. <P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, and San Diego boards...</P>
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> > Canada 360 has that craptastic traffic and weather codec,
> > but Laugh Attack and Home Ice has decent audio.
> >
> I am quite mad about the Murders of CH's 100&102, I guess
> they will get some Subscribers from Canada,but I will most
> likely cancel service Monday.
> This is a backwards move.XM seems to want to be the same as
> TERRAD except without commercials.
> I was thinking about Sirius,but then decided to get DSL and
> stream instead.
> I am very sad ,I liked XM a lot but it has been wrecked now!

Couldn't they have a seperate service for Canada?

Good to see Tony Snow exiting as CC's new morning duo L&T come in, albeit it delayed. Although it's not much of an "Ask" channel anymore.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

>
> Couldn't they have a seperate service for Canada?
>
> Good to see Tony Snow exiting as CC's new morning duo L&T
> come in, albeit it delayed. Although it's not much of an
> "Ask" channel anymore.
>

L&T aren't on the "Ask" channel, they will be on Xtreme Talk 152.. Liddy will be gong to Ask in Jan...
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> Couldn't they have a seperate service for Canada?

They do have a separate service for Canada. If you have a Canadian radio ID, you only get 80 of the channels.

If you're asking could they do an entirely separate service for Canada, yes, but that would require launching more satellites. Considering that neither service has turned a profit yet, don't expect it.<P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, and San Diego boards...</P>
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> Considering what XM had to do to make the CRTC happy, the
> changes made were about the best they could do given the
> bandwith they've got. If losing World Zone and Ngoma make
> you that angry, cancel, but I really doubt if they're going
> to lose more Ngoma fans than they'll gain in Canadian
> subscriptions, especially with NHL games in the lineup.

Gotta agree with you here. Although the Canadian offerings on XM seem pretty minimal and mediocre, they got rid of channels that probably never got much listening anyway, and the Canadian channels they did add will definitely get more listening north of the border. I tried to get into Ngoma and World Zone and could just never do it, and I suspect I'm not the only one.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

They need to add some more Canadian music channels. If you live on the US/Canadian border you can easily receive Canadian music channels which in my opinion are superior to their US counterparts- because they play both Canadian and US content which means their play lists are slightly longer because of this.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> They need to add some more Canadian music channels. If you
> live on the US/Canadian border you can easily receive
> Canadian music channels which in my opinion are superior to
> their US counterparts- because they play both Canadian and
> US content which means their play lists are slightly longer
> because of this.

I would tend to agree with you here. Really, all they did when it comes to music channels was make Unsigned a Canadian music channel and add some French channels. When it comes to serving Canada, it looks like the other satellite company may do a better job. Of course, XM does get music channels on in Canada that don't have to deal with the restrictions from the CRTC, and I don't see that as being a bad thing.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> Of course, XM does get music channels
> on in Canada that don't have to deal with the restrictions
> from the CRTC, and I don't see that as being a bad thing.
>

...and freedom from the Canadian Cultural Police is a selling point. Ask all the people with grey market DirecTV dishes in Canada. From listening to people while working up there, the perception seemed to be American media = better content. <P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, and San Diego boards...</P>
 
Canadian Channels ... is this it?

Based on my reading of the CRTC's documents, I thought that 60 percent of the entire Canadian-produced lineup had to be music channels. Sirius meets this requirement, but XM doesn't appear to. After another, more careful reading, the word used is "expects", not "requires", but it would seem to at least have some impact on the ability to renew a license.

Item #79 at:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2005/pb2005-61.htm

Another item from the above document, and from the link below, is the multicultural channel that Canadian Satellite Radio (XM Canada) had "committed" to carrying at launch. It was going to be called Mosaic. It is mentioned in point #8 of the above, and in at least two letters at the site below:
http://www.cdnsatrad.com/canada/
Click on CiRV and ATN to see letters mentioning "Mosaic."

I would be interested to know why this channel is not (apparently) part of XM Canada's lineup, as it appeared they had a long list of partners ready to provide content. And instead, they've come up with Canada 360? Not very impressive. And its Francophone companion service "Quois De Neuf" was temporarily off the air Monday, and the "This channel is experiencing technical difficulties" recording is *English Only*! Hopefully they'll exchange it for a bilingual or trilingual recording soon enough.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> Considering what XM had to do to make the CRTC happy, the
> changes made were about the best they could do given the
> bandwith they've got. If losing World Zone and Ngoma make
> you that angry, cancel, but I really doubt if they're going
> to lose more Ngoma fans than they'll gain in Canadian
> subscriptions, especially with NHL games in the lineup.

I tend to agree. I was worried about what would have to be cut, but I'm pretty happy with the results. While Ngoma and World Zone brought something unique to XM, I can't imagine they were at all popular channels. Even on satellite radio, a channel can't survive without listeners.
 
Canada 360: CRTC Appeasement At Wal-Mart Prices

> Canada 360 has that craptastic traffic and weather codec,
> but Laugh Attack and Home Ice has decent audio.

The two news/feature channels smack dab in the middle of the traffic tier say "throwaway effort for the CRTC."

Both are nearly unlistenable thanks to the lousy CODEC XM uses to compress their traffic and weather channels (and now these two Canadian orphans). Female voices suffer especially badly from the compression, and one of the signature tunes they use almost disappears because of the compression.

The content? A radio reading service for the visually impaired would be more compelling. The services are made up of news articles, wire copy, and magazine article readings done by two announcers with radio voices made for newspapers. Even worse, many of the features are heavily repeated over days, not just hours.

XM's treatment of these channels reminds me of the interview with the county sewer commissioner at 5am Sundays that radio stations used to run to satisfy FCC requirements. These two channels are cynical efforts to meet Canadian content requirements.

The comedy channel is duplicative of what we already have on XM. The music channels have some promise.

XM's Canadian content is a far cry from the efforts Sirius is making. They'll be bringing in CBC Radio and Radio Canada which have outstanding programming, not the hosers reading clippings from Macleans.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> Gotta agree with you here. Although the Canadian offerings
> on XM seem pretty minimal and mediocre, they got rid of
> channels that probably never got much listening anyway, and
> the Canadian channels they did add will definitely get more
> listening north of the border. I tried to get into Ngoma
> and World Zone and could just never do it, and I suspect I'm
> not the only one.

If they want to dump useless channels, how about the audio soundtracks of channels like E! I can understand the news channel audio - that makes at least some sense. But what is compelling about hearing E's True Hollywood Story? Niche music channels should precisely be what XM is all about. I appreciate the fact there is a Sunny for beautiful music and an Audio Visions for new age. That's far better than something like repetitious pop/rock channels that can be hard to distinguish from each other.
 
Re: Canadian Channels are on air now and they stink!!

> > Canada 360 has that craptastic traffic and weather codec,
> > but Laugh Attack and Home Ice has decent audio.
> >
> I am quite mad about the Murders of CH's 100&102, I guess
> they will get some Subscribers from Canada,but I will most
> likely cancel service Monday.
> This is a backwards move.XM seems to want to be the same as
> TERRAD except without commercials.
> I was thinking about Sirius,but then decided to get DSL and
> stream instead.
> I am very sad ,I liked XM a lot but it has been wrecked now!
>


C'mon man, you're over doing it. Over a couple eclectic format channels?
Wrecked....far from it. Enjoy the sub genre main stream stations, and quit acting like sophisticrats.
 
Re: Canada 360: CRTC Appeasement At Wal-Mart Prices

> The content? A radio reading service for the visually
> impaired would be more compelling.

They have yet to update the content since last week.

Shameful.<P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, and San Diego boards...</P>
 
Re: Canada 360: CRTC Appeasement At Wal-Mart Prices

> They have yet to update the content since last week.
>
> Shameful.
>

Not like Canada can hear it yet.
 
Re: Canada 360: CRTC Appeasement At Wal-Mart Prices

> > They have yet to update the content since last week.
> >
> > Shameful.
> >
>
> Not like Canada can hear it yet.
>
but they can..receivers are already for sale..i know people in canada that have had xm for 2 years!! all you need is a zipcode in the usa..<P ID="signature">______________
note to tvland...bring back wkrp!!!</P>
 
Canada 360 - Awful!

> XM's treatment of these channels reminds me of the interview
> with the county sewer commissioner at 5am Sundays that radio
> stations used to run to satisfy FCC requirements. These two
> channels are cynical efforts to meet Canadian content
> requirements.

Amen to that. I'm a "Canada-phile", I guess you could call me, and Canada 360 is awful. It's horrid. It sounds bad, and the content is worse.

I certainly hope this is not the only Canadian-content news/talk channel XM will have. Isn't XM Canada hooked up with Standard Radio or something? Heck, I'd rather have a 24/7 simulcast of CFRB or CKNW!

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
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