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Will channel consolidation affect playlists?

1K views 14 replies 9 participants last post by  Pat6366 
#1 ·
The general consensus here seems to be that xm channels had deeper playlists and didn't tend to repeat tracks as often as sirius. Now that they have consolidated the channels, will the former sirius channels continue to be repetitive, or will they have the variety of their now defunct xm counterparts?
 
#2 ·
Probably somewhere in between. 1st Wave seems to be playing some deeper tracks than they were before.


You have to remember one thing: For every subscriber that wants to hear the deep cuts, there's someone perfectly happy to hear their 500 favorite songs in a particular genre. XM was more-or-less targeted at one audience, and Sirius at the other.


Finding the middle ground won't be easy.
 
#3 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by escapecar /forum/post/15065832


Probably somewhere in between. 1st Wave seems to be playing some deeper tracks than they were before.


You have to remember one thing: For every subscriber that wants to hear the deep cuts, there's someone perfectly happy to hear their 500 favorite songs in a particular genre. XM was more-or-less targeted at one audience, and Sirius at the other.


Finding the middle ground won't be easy.

Are you trying to say that 1st Wave is playing deeper tracks then when it was

Fred on XM? If so, I disagree that the 1st Wave is deeper than the old Fred.

I have now listened to 1st Wave 5 times for approx 1 hour each time (My commute).

I haven't heard a song on there that I never heard before. That happened all the

time when it was Fred under XM for me.


buz
 
#4 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by buz /forum/post/15069520


Are you trying to say that 1st Wave is playing deeper tracks then when it was

Fred on XM? If so, I disagree that the 1st Wave is deeper than the old Fred.

I have now listened to 1st Wave 5 times for approx 1 hour each time (My commute).

I haven't heard a song on there that I never heard before. That happened all the

time when it was Fred under XM for me.


buz

No. I'm a Sirius sub, never had XM.


I'm saying that it's deeper than 1st Wave on Sirius used to be. (Even before Wednesday, 1st Wave had improved from two years ago, but there was a day when you could set your watch by the hourly tracks from The Cure and Depeche Mode.)


I had it on for about 40 minutes last night and heard three songs I hadn't heard on 1st Wave before. Two of them were songs I've never heard before, period, and one of those was from a group I'd never heard of.


I'll repeat this: Sirius and XM apparently had very different approaches to programming the genre channels. XM was after people who wanted to park on one channel all day, so they went deep, while Sirius seemed to expect more surfing, and went with the hits. Both are legitimate ways to program a channel, and both had an audience.


We'll see if they can keep anyone happy with this merger.
 
#5 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by escapecar /forum/post/15070454


No. I'm a Sirius sub, never had XM.


I'm saying that it's deeper than 1st Wave on Sirius used to be. (Even before Wednesday, 1st Wave had improved from two years ago, but there was a day when you could set your watch by the hourly tracks from The Cure and Depeche Mode.)


I had it on for about 40 minutes last night and heard three songs I hadn't heard on 1st Wave before. Two of them were songs I've never heard before, period, and one of those was from a group I'd never heard of.


I'll repeat this: Sirius and XM apparently had very different approaches to programming the genre channels. XM was after people who wanted to park on one channel all day, so they went deep, while Sirius seemed to expect more surfing, and went with the hits. Both are legitimate ways to program a channel, and both had an audience.


We'll see if they can keep anyone happy with this merger.

You're right. Almost anyone who's had/listened to both say exactly what you're saying. XM had a deeper playlist. It's not right or wrong, different strokes for different folks.
 
#6 ·
well from the looks of it... i think we are getting the same channel on both... but xm had a better playlist
 
#7 ·
As an XM subscriber, I was surprised to read all the comments about XM having deeper playlists than Sirius; I always thought that XM repeated songs too much.


In my opinion, the depth of the playlist should reflect how much material is available. For a current hits channel, a couple hundred songs is all you'd need. (After all, how many current hits are there at any given time?) So, on this type of channel, I would expect songs to repeat multiple times per day.


For something like a classic rock channel spanning two decades, there are many thousands of songs available, so the playlist should be much deeper. Songs shouldn't repeat very often. If I'm listening to a channel like Top Tracks (now Classic Vinyl), I would prefer not to hear any song twice in a week. Of course, if they change the time of day, a song could be played once a day without a high risk of any one listener hearing it more than once a week. (God knows how many times I've heard Peter Frampton's Do You Feel Like I Do on Top Tracks in the years I've been subscribing; a couple times a year would be more than enough.)


Anyway you look at it, a channel that plays music spanning many years (such as decade or classic channels) should have a much larger playlist than a channel playing music from a much smaller time span (such as current hits). If I hear the same song several times a week on Classic Vinyl, than the playlist is too small. If I'm listening to a current hits channel, I would expect to hear the same songs multiple times in a week.
 
#8 ·
Since the changes I haven't listened enough to tell if they are taking the deeper playlist approach or a more shallow playlist.


The only channel I usually listen to that I've listened to so far is the 60's, and so far it seems the same. It sounds like the XM 60's before the change.


The other decade channels, and 46 and 49 I can't say yet.
 
#9 ·
I listen 1st Wave often (Sirius in the car / internet @ work) and XM Fred thru my DirecTV at home. No doubt Fred has a deeper playlist, 1st Wave was almost all hits or atleast the most popular songs from a given artist. At times listening to Fred I had no idea what/who they were playing... it was mostly new stuff to me.


Its a tough balance to maintain because too many unknown tracks and your in "under ground" B-side WTF terrority, too much well know stuff and then the station sounds like a greatest hit CD on shuffle. Finding a middle ground will be key to the success of the "new" 1st Wave. This could be helped along by doing a few more specialty shows (like they currently do with Saturday Night Safety Dance & Dark Wave ) in attempts to keep everyone happy.
 
#10 ·
Fred and Lucy are dead and the fact that the replacement channels have the word alternative in their descriptions is a total sham. Listening to 1st Wave on the way home tonight heard Talking Heads "Stay up Late", Police "Synchronicity", Peter Gabriel "Shock the Monkey" and Elvis Costello "Pump it Up". These are some great artists/groups that have made plenty of great alternative music but they choose to play the radio hits. Their playlist reminds me of the first few years of MTV which was okay but very safe. Yuck
 
#13 ·
The old "Top Tracks" was a nice juke box for the car and restaurants. Now we've got "DJs" playing the tunes. I like Denis Elsas from his earlier life, but Sirius could save a lot of money by pink-slipping Carole Miller and him, along with the rest of the "Star" baggage. I know the songs by heart. I don't need someone to tell me what they are, or "facts" I already know.
 
#15 ·
Between Thursday and Sunday evening, I listened to XM-Sirius maybe a total of 3 hours, much of that time switching between stations or listening to Talk radio, but while on 1st Wave I heard one song repeated 3 times and another song repeated 2 times. I thought that type of bubble gum top 40 playlist crap was one of the reasons why people went for SR in the first place. If a station like 1st Wave that should be pulling songs from a 12-15 year span of time can't figure out how not to be repetitive, then they should give it up or leave the music programming up to the XM side.
 
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