Bent Corner

Sirius-XM (or whatever they are calling themselves) rolled out their new channels today and I was disappointed to discover that they dropped the punk Rock channel. I thought it was bad when they “temporarily” converted the channel over to a 24 hour AC/DC channel.

This really irritates me. Since my personal music collection is really quite limited when it comes to punk rock, I found myself listening to channel 29 quite a bit. I checked out the Sirius-XM website and it said that if I like the punk rock channel, I should listen to The Fraction on channel 28. Really? This is what Sirius-XM says about channel 28:

Where heelflips, handplants, half-pipes and hard rock join hip-hop and the biggest names in skateboarding, surfing, freestyle skiing and more. Faction is the music that defines the action sports lifestyle. Hear exclusive shows from Tony Hawk, Bam Margera and more.

What we play: System of a Down, Offspring, NOFX, Metallica, 50 Cent, Green Day, Beastie Boys, AFI, Korn, Snoop Dogg, My Chemical Romance and Sex Pistols.

I don’t want a channel that is dedicated to the action sports lifestyle. I don’t want to hear shows by Tony Hawk or Bam Margera. I don’t want to hear the music of 50 Cent, Metallica, or Snoop Dogg.

Instead of a music channel dedicated to punk rock, I get a channel dedicated to the skateboard dorks that you find hanging out at the mall food court.

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I’m not sure what took so long, but the FCC has finally agreed to allow Sirius and XM to merge into one satellite company.

I used to have XM, but I got rid of both my radios and switched to Sirius a few months ago.  I decided that I would rather listen to Howard Stern in the mornings then Opie & Anthony.  I felt like their show had gone down the tubes since they made the jump back to regular radio.  When they weren’t going to commercial, they were complaining about other radio shows getting better ratings then them.  It got boring.

Howard Stern on the other hand has been Howard Stern.  He’s as great as he has ever been.  In fact, he’s actually better then ever.

The music channels on Sirius are better then the music channels on XM.  I find myself listening to a lot of channel 22 First Wave.  They play a lot of classic alternative and new wave.  I also enjoy channel 29 Punk Rock.  They play nothing but new and vintage puck rock.

One of the things I don’t understand about this merger is one of the stipulations forced on Sirius and XM by the FCC.  The two companies had to agree that after they merge, they will not raise prices for three years. If the government can do that with satellite radio, why can’t they do that with gas?