Thread: Annual Cost Increase

This merger between Sirius and XM that was supposed to benefit the consumer was a con job from the beginning. I'm not certain if the feds were in on this con job or just incredibly stupid.

I have two cars with satellite radios that I pay for annually. Last year's bill was $256 and this year's bill is $309.

Quite an increase for something (the merger) that was supposed to lower or at least hold the line on price increases.

Whatever happened to the prospect of ala-cart subscriptions as I only regularly listen to about 6 channels?

Its the $2.00 per radio per month increase they passed on down to its customer..The record industry hit them with a tax so instead of eating they passed it down. I cancelled both of my cars at that moment..Slacker is way better and 45 bucks per year and sounds 100 times better anyway.. I do not miss them one bit.

Cancelled mine a while back too... Satellite radio not worth it any more. Now with HD-Radio + since me and the wife have data services on our Sprint cells, internet radio roxs and its free like clubfmradio .. from cell to car radio via bluetooth and free

HD radio in alot of areas is useless...here in MN it is
Public radio and a few AM stations are subchannels on FM.
(just looked and I would gain on HD...a station called deep cuts, comedy,Christian, Classic Country, New Country, Jazz, and 80's. The other 6 channels are either public radio or AM counterparts)

My year comes up in December so I'll have to look at it.

I love satellite radio but cancelled one of my four subscriptions due to the increase.

I am about to cancel mine.

Make no mistake about this. It's a thinly disguised rate increase. As acknowledged by Sirius/XM We the consumer have been paying this fee all along so what they did was essentially itemize it but conveniently neglect to remove it from the base rate. This is a rate increase pure and simple which appears to violate the merger agreement promise not to raise rates for at least 3 years but I think the Feds are unconcerned or clueless. BTW, despite the merger promises I think they are still operating at a loss, If that's true that means satellite radio has never turned one dime of profit, How long can this go on?

This summer I went from two radios to one, now my wife and I share depending on who is traveling farther, etc. I also dropped the car subscription, so actually 3 to 1.

I like the NFL, but could care less about Stern, so I did the family friendly with sirius for $15/mo. After NFL is done, I'll switch back to the $12/mo. Then again, I may call retention and push for the $77/yr deal again. They seem to have no problem prorating me back to the regular plan when NFL starts up.

I did upgrade to the XMP3 which is a nice radio, but kinda finiky, I think it needs some firmware improvements. I had two Innos, but one had some power problems. Sold the good one for $125 on ebay, and only paid $129 for the new XMP3 at best buy a month ago or so, and it had a free car kit. Sold my old car kits and bought new car kits for the xmp3 both on ebay, and ended up essentially breaking even.

Yep, I think they're still losing money.

The benefit to the consumer is, supposedly, that satellite radio continues to exist. They might both have gone under if they kept up as they were.

They have apparently been quite successful in cutting costs, with even more savings in the future. And subscriber numbers grew due to so many new cars being equipped with sat radio. Of course, that pipe has almost dried up. But they may see profits one day, they just need to get thru the next couple of years.