What's the price beef, gang? Sirius U.S. is $13 and something U.S. dollars every month, making Canadian Sirius cheaper.

Quick Price Comparision:

US Service = $12.95 USD a month or $15.23 CDN for 150 Stations (cheaper if you sign up longer )

CDN service = $14.99 CDN + TAXES or $17.24 CDN for 80 Stations. (cheaper in ALTA)

Stern is on Buffalo radio, so I suspect that he has a significant audience in the GTA.
He is the only reason I would consider satellite radio.
There is no way to know what his fan base is in Toronto, but I doubt I am alone.

I just went to the canadian sirus website and sent them an email under the contact us link
I said I would subscibe if Stern is available
I suggest doing the same

http://www.sirius-canada.ca/ContactUs-e.htm

what about hair nation? and buzz saw...... 2 of my favs???? no mention of it ???? PLEASE i hope it will be there....

Where did you guys see that these 2 stations and The Beat are not included? The publication does not mention every particular music station that will be included.

Not so fast, Mike... for the cost issue, please see:

US Service = $12.95 USD a month or $15.23 CDN for 150 Stations (cheaper if you sign up longer )

CDN service = $14.99 CDN + TAXES or $17.24 CDN for 80 Stations. (cheaper in ALTA)

Also, your issue with the DJ's is somewhat misleading. Someone saying something like, "Hey, that was 'so-and-so', now here's 'so-and-so' with their new song" is a lot different than a 5-10 minute commercial break.

As for the rest of your post, you are simply stating your own opinion. There is a lot of assuming that your tastes speak for everyone. They do not. However, you should also not assume that just because you do not like Howard Stern that you are the majority. Who cares? Enough people to cause an even bigger problem with the grey market service now that it seems Stern will not be included in the Sirius Canada channel line up. Look at some of the other posts in this thread as an example... your opinion is already that of the minority.

I can't believe you stated Stern isn't popular in Canada .. the guy is Mr Radio. Look at what he's done for subs in the USA. If you listen to his show, you hear all the great stuff he's planning for Sirius and all the stuff we won't get in Russia.. oh I mean Canada.

I had hoped to be able to do this the simple way and buy Canadian .. but it looks like - again - the government here is too stupid to understand what the people want.

The part I don't get is that they'll have the "Raw Dog" channel which is just as dirty as the Stern channel.. makes no sense to me.

US Service = $12.95 USD a month or $15.23 CDN for 150 Stations (cheaper if you sign up longer )

CDN service = $14.99 CDN + TAXES or $17.24 CDN for 80 Stations. (cheaper in ALTA)

To be fair, this interpretation is incorrect too. The price calcualtions are correct, but the channel count interpretation is both incorrect and misleading. Here is why:
- Sirius Canada have said that they will have 100 channels in the lineup, not 80.
- The 150 figure for the US service is incorrect too - even if you count the US traffic reports, the overall channel count is about 120.
- The channel counts by both XM and Sirius have blatantly been used for misleading advertising. If you look at US promotion materials, you would probably think that XM has "more channels" than Sirius, which is a lie. Sirius lie too - both companies calculate their channel count as the mumber of active positions on the receiver dial. A lot of them are promotions or event only. They add a dozen on top of that and - hey, look, we have 150 channels!
- One music channel takes the bandwidth of 6 to 8 or more talk channels. Talk channels are inferior in quality and it is simply not serious to count them together with the music channels. They can come and go by the dozens and that is the same as adding or removing one or 2 music channels. In other words - all that matters is how many music channels XM, Sirius and their respective Canadian versions carry, and that number is the same for all 4 services - 65. Everything else is marketing BS.

The price difference (Canadian being a little more expensive) wouldn't matter so much, but combined with the absence of Stern, it is a big deal. This is where the Canadian offer stinks, not the artificially skewed and exaggerarted channel count differences.

Fine, I know you love to talk about band width and sound quality, Arthur, but would you ultimately agree that, in Canada, people will be paying more for less? Whether it be fewer channels overall or the exclusion of Stern?

Arthur, I cut the comparision from an earlier thread when we didn't know that 100 channels would be offered.

My point was simply to illustrate that the CDN service appears to MORE expensive than the US service.

Anyone else happen to notice that they are adding more French Canadian channels than they are English?

That seems a bit odd... doesn't it?

I seem to recall that there were French lobby groups who complained because the original plan was to have fewer French channels. I guess they got their way... and then some!

Stern posts moved to another thread.

Please don't hijack threads people. This thread is about the Sirius Lineup not about why Howard Stern is not on Q107 anymore.

I just read the article. Didn't count the stations... Guess I assumed it was a complete list. Now at least there is hope of the beat on the list! Thanks for pointing that out!

Where did you guys see that these 2 stations and The Beat are not included? The publication does not mention every particular music station that will be included.

Anyone else happen to notice that they are adding more French Canadian channels than they are English?

That seems a bit odd... doesn't it?

I seem to recall that there were French lobby groups who complained because the original plan was to have fewer French channels. I guess they got their way... and then some!

I'm no apologist for the French, however this makes perfect economic sense to me. They need a way to appeal to French speaking Canadians:

- if they added 0 new "Canadian" channels in English they could still find English speaking Canadians that would subscribe to the US content.
- if they added 0 new "Canadian" channels in French they could find it difficult to find many French speaking Canadians interested in being a Customer.

Thus, they make a half hearted attempt to include some totally worthless English "Canadian" content (me personally NOT being a fan of the CBC) and then give the Canadian people what they really "want"... more French!

*grumble*

Wheres the "Canada Channel"? Something that plays great Canadian music from any decade (I'll take a stab as a programmer: 20% oldest (pre 60's), 30% (60,70,80's) and 30% (90's and today) and 20% non-Canadian (with a similar breakdown of 30%/40%/30%) How am I gonna get my BNL fix? ;-)

PlaceHolder:

Of course I understand that English speaking Canadians will have far more to chose from, and I do agree with all your points, however, I just found it "interesting" that out of the 10 exclusively Canadian channels that will be added, there are more French than there are English.

...interesting indeed. ;)

Big Seany: Ah, yes, tax dollars. My apologies: I forgot. This does bring the Cdn. price higher... but because of the government of Canada, not Sirius radio. So I reiterate: it is cheaper in Canada on the bottom line. Also, your issue with the DJ's is somewhat misleading. Someone saying something like, "Hey, that was 'so-and-so', now here's 'so-and-so' with their new song" is a lot different than a 5-10 minute commercial break. Big Seany, have you been listening to these channels? I couldn't imagine you making a statement like that if you had: Some of these guys (and gals) sound like they are right out of 50's broadcaster school. I was a radio jock in a former life, and there were two things we tried very, very hard not to do: sound like anyone else on the air, and actually use phrases like "That was so-and-so, and this is so-and-so. An on-air person gets extremely limited time between songs and commercials to make his/her presence felt and to create a personality. Yet a good number of these Sirius people obviously haven't heard about that. Especially today, you will notice on regular radio, with their forced repetitious playlists and ever-increasing commercial breaks, that there is almost no time at all. I would think that on Sirius, where they actually get a chance to "be somebody", the powers that be would really push harder for their announcers to do just that. That's not to say they are all like that; there are some actually pretty cool ones on the air at Sirius, too. And where exactly do you live that you get 5-10 minute commercial breaks? Ouch. And as for the Stern comments, I'm sorry... is this a "forum" for opinions of interest concerning Sirius radio and its contents, or is this simply a repository of facts? Wait, didn't I see like a billion opinions on Stern all over these forums? But I guess mine doesn't count because I seem to be in the minority. Hey, I'm not flaming you, but you seemed to have taken an awfully strong dislike to my comments. Who cares? Enough people to cause an even bigger problem with the grey market service now that it seems Stern will not be included in the Sirius Canada channel line up. That raises an interesting question: are you inferring that the grey-market service is a problem? If so, you are suggesting that my purchase of a U.S. product, while staying in Mexico, is a bad thing. Can I ask where you are getting your Sirius from? This is one of those times wherein I believe the law is wrong: marijuana, satellite TV, gay marriage (oh, wait, they changed their minds on that one, thank god). I'm willing to bet that Stern will be on the air on Sirius Canada, and that they are just waiting to use his name as a hammer-heavy marketing tool. As someone here points out, pay-for-service is held up to quite a bit of a different standard than regular over-the-air stuff (check out StarChoice channel 603 after 11 pm). Just because I don't like him doesn't mean he isn't a huge draw. But a look back at his broadcasting history over the past few years points out a pattern... he is losing ground fast. I personally think that his comments about "radio being dead, and satellite radio the future" are self-propogandizing, and not a true statement about radio.

All, sorry for the preceding post being one big run-on paragraph.... I am HTML-illiterate, wrote it in a text editor, can't get the para breaks to work.

If I have a Sirius 1 yr pre paid acct, will it renew for another 1 year term?? as when I go into the Sirius website to renew it notes the billing address for the credit card must match the service address thanks

Looking at this list of stations ... I don't see much at all that grabs me ... perhaps CBC Radio 3 ... and that's it. (and where the heck is Radio 2?).

A very bland list of stations. Surely Canadians want to listen to Canadian Radio? Where's stuff like 680 News? I'd like to be able to listen to these stations outside of Metro. Or Montreal's 940?

Guess I won't be subscribing.

Nick

MikeDRiley:

Wow! Type much? :o

Listen, I wasn't trying to flame you, but you made some blanket statements about Stern, i.e. the "Who cares?" comment. All I was trying to say was that the reason for introduction of satellite radio to Canada is to, 1. Make a profit and 2. help bring an end to the grey market subs. And by excluding Stern and limiting the number of channels one is eligible to receive in Canada, they are defeating their own purpose. I wasn't trying to say your opinion doesn't matter, I was pointing out that enough people "care" about Stern that the grey market will continue to thrive with his apparent absence from Sirius Canada.

I see nothing wrong with the grey market. As far as I am concerned, if this country can't offer it's own citizens an equal product, get it elsewhere.

You think Sirius Canada is "waiting" to drop Stern's name as a marketing ploy? Well someone ought to fire the head of marketing for Sirius Canada if they are waiting to do that. The service apparently launches next month. What they have done by not mentioning his name in their press release is cause people who were on the fence about whether to go with the grey market or to wait for the "legal" version to jump off that fence and run across the border!

As for the DJ's... what channels are you listening to that they babble on for several minutes at a time? On the stations I listen to, the DJ's hardly talk other than the occasional entertainment update. Having said that... none of that qualifies as "commercials". The music channels are commercial-free.

Finally, whether you considered the tax here in Canada or not, it remains a factor. And at the end of the day, it is cheaper to subscribe to the Sirius USA, especially if you pay by the year or have a lifetime subscription.

No hate here, Mike. Just a fellow Canadian who's tired the inferior media services that are offered to us here in Canada. And I'm even more tired of the government/CRTC dictating what content will be "allowed" with these services. Just put the product out and let the public decide for God's sake!

Where's stuff like 680 News? I'd like to be able to listen to these stations outside of Metro. Or Montreal's 940?

Guess I won't be subscribing.

Nick

You're suggesting they add AM radio stations to a satellite radio service... that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?