How much is Sirius XM?
6My fancy new Toyota has SiriusXM and they want me to extend my trial subscription 3 months for $2 and after that it will be $22 a month I think. Is that a good deal?
Assuming one likes SiriusXM that is. The jury is still out over here at chez TRJ. But I have been enjoying it.
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I had mine for a while and then finally canceled it few years ago. The discounts get better the longer you’ve been out of service.
I think re-enabling service was super simple and even automatic. It’s done off of your radio ID (buried in the settings somewhere).
The best offer I receive every other month or so (“Please come back! You are a valued customer!”) is $5/mo. I think that is not including their $3/mo add-on for streaming app/web listening.
I would let it lapse and see what discounts they offer to get you back. $22/mo seems a bit high when they’re offering me $5/mo ($60ish a year).
That’s for the basic service. It adds up when you add on the “expanded lineup” and then the sports channels. What is the plan you have?
@mike808 I think I have the whole smear. All the sports, podcasts and a huge of amount of channels + Pandora. I can also listen on an app or from my desktop. It’s an overwhelming amount of channels.
i always call them towards the end of my contract and they always seem to have a “special” running for $5-7/mo
@carl669 Ditto. If not, let it lapse until the deal gets good enough to go back.
@carl669 Yes. I bought a new car last fall. After the three month subscription I extended it with the $2 for 3 months offer/ploy to get your credit card information. When that was about to expire I called to “cancel”. They gave me a deal of $6/month + fees and taxes…works out to about $8. This does not include some of the premium and sports channels (which I don’t care about anyway) but does include the streaming (which is nice to have).
When it’s time to “cancel” I’ll call them again and see what they can do for me. I have a friend who uses this similar strategy and pays the same/a similar amount to what I pay.
For $22 a month, do they pump your gas? change the oil? wash the car?
Maybe they programmed it in Japan and they really mean 22 Yen? That would be a pretty good deal.
@ybmuG How much do you pay every month for all those cable channels you don’t watch? $50? more?
It is a value decision.
@mike808 $0. Cut the cord - thieves! We were paying over $70 for a package when my in-laws lived with us.
If you want to keep it just cancel and wait to get a letter in the mail offering $5 a month for a certain period of time. Once that expires just cancel again and repeat the cycle.
Also, April through June is Discover 5% Cash Back category, and SiriusXM is in the category (streaming services)!
So maybe call them up (is your radio deactivated or is your subscription not yet expired?). The number I have may be a special retention number, and not the regular renewal/CS number. I don’t know - never called it.
Or call them and ask them to match that price.
Pay with Discover after you activate the category!
@mike808 Nice. I’m still just on the new car trial. They just sent me an email granting another 14 days of trial. The $2 extension thing requires my CC…right now I aint paid nuttin.
When my free car subscription was going to end they wanted something like 15 a month to continue. After talking with them they dropped it to $60 a year for Sirius Select and Video. It allows me to listen in my car, phone, computer even my Alexa.
For me it is worth it, as I listen to a couple channels all the time.
Last year I told them it cost too much and they went straight to $5 a month. It was the best conversation I’ve ever had with them. And I get loads of crap too, including extra stations over WiFi.
I like the classic radio show channel.
@sammydog01 spotify or siriusxm, who ya got?!
@njfan Both!
Both huh?
This is why @sammydog01 is so popular at the meh.com meetups!
https://www.noagendashow.net
OK, this last post was a little self-serving.
Regardless, I’ve been a long-time producer of the NoAgendaShow and I would like to invite interested parties to tune in Thursday and Sunday at 11:00 Central time.
Check out the live stream at http://listen.noagendastream.com/noagenda
Peace Out :piece_sign:
@sammydog01 @therealjrn
I thought no agenda was a podcast.
So it’s a live show, a podcast, or both?
And if both, does the content differ? Is one format for contributors and the other for free listeners?
@f00l @therealjrn Tune in at 11 central tomorrow and find out, I guess.
https://www.siriusxm.com/packages
I just tell them it is all harassment and to leave me the fuck alone or they’ll hear from my lawyer.
Usually they leave me alone for a year or two
and no, I don’t subscribe.
If anyone knows a way to totally opt out of the ‘trial’ on car purchase, people would buy it from you
I got a new car at the end of August and when my trial subscription of Sirius-XM expired I signed up for a one year plan at $5/month plus a free Amazon Echo Dot. I’m addicted to listening to Doctor Radio now. When the subscription expires, I hope I can talk them into renewing for $5/month, otherwise I will need to go to Doctor Radio Rehab.
@heartny …and I said, no, no, no.
20 years ago when it was just Sirius and not XM (that came later), I paid $500 for a lifetime subscription. So far I am still living and use the Sirius/XM radio as an indoor radio mostly, though I have adapters for the cars. It was a risk at the time, but turned out to be a pretty good deal as I hate – I say, hate – monthly payments of any sort.
And yes, before you ask, I did have to change receivers once for which there was a $50 charge, I think.
Now for the downside. Because I am grandfathered in and have still the service, the Sirius/XM email annoyances can’t seem to deal with this anomaly and I get about 2 or 3 emails offering deals a week. I just delete them without viewing.
@Jackinga I’m so jealous.
@TrickyKitty My first Sirius was a gift from my son, which, when the gift subscription ran out, I was faced with the dreaded monthly payment syndrome. So I took a chance, really a big gamble, and opted for the lifetime subscription.
At the time, there wasn’t as much content as now and XM was the main competitor. So it was uncertain as to whether Sirius would survive. And…and…and…five hundred bucks is a lot a money (to me at any rate).
At this point the gamble paid off, so on average since 2001, I have paid $25/year with each year getting successively less expensive (on average.)
I am a lifelong listener, viz., audiobooks, OTR [old time radio], NPR, etc. But I eschew talk radio and all the rabble rousing hate that it spews.
I only have so much attention; we all do. There are so many things – too many – vying for that attention, cell phones, computers, TV, Echo devices, games, magazines, newspapers, books, etc., etc., etc.
As these attention sinks have mushroomed since I got my Sirius, I am not sure that I would opt for the same deal today. Of course, the real value of a Sirius/XM is for commuters or long distance drivers sitting for hours a day behind a steering wheel. That is the one area where the satellite radio shines.
I spent years working in a radio/TV shop, back in the days when one could repair such things for less than replacement costs. There were always sets on the bench playing to make sure they were working after being repaired. I developed the habit of listening to them, but not bothering to watch the pictures as I was otherwise busy. To this day, I am not a TV watcher as a result.
Back in the day, when I traveled for work, it would never occur to me to switch on the TV. I usually turned on that same plastic radio with the tinny speaker and with the impossible to set alarm, which I found mysteriously in virtually every hotel/motel room in the nation. One of the great mysteries of life after staying in countless hotels/motels, of how that same radio and that same damn plastic potted lobby plant seem to be everywhere I went. How do they do that?
@Jackinga @TrickyKitty
I think love you,
@Jackinga I was originally an XM subscriber (no lifetime option with XM) - when they merged we were given the opportunity to get a lifetime sub and I bought in. My Pioneer Inno died a couple years ago & I am too cheap to pay $75 to roll my sub over to new hardware but my sub also included lifetime high quality streaming (after a small battle with Sirius when they killed XM’s 64kbps stream and tried to leave us with their 32kbps - ummm no…) and now with cell phones my wife just streams through he phone when driving.
@Jackinga - What I ultimately love is the lack of commercials. While I love and want to support local FM stations, I would rather pay money to not hear the ads than have advertisers pay the stations to annoy me.
I was actually turned on to Sirius when it was the music part of the DISH cable that we had at the time, and I listened to 1st Wave quite often through the TV while doing other things. We switched to DirecTV which has it’s own music stations, so I was greatly missing my 1st Wave station. Ever since The Edge shut down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I had been jonesing for good 80s alternative, and man did that station NIN it!
So when my next car purchase included the XM trial package I was ecstatic. Again, deciding I’d rather pay a station directly to not have to hear commercials, I bought the 1-yr basic music-only package. Once I finally bought a tablet (before I bought into a smart phone), I finally started listening to audio books in the car during my commute, so the car radio wasn’t getting much use unless I had passengers that I knew wouldn’t be interested in hearing my books.
At that time, I was still wanting my 1st Wave, but was really enjoying getting some “reading” done, so I added the internet package and started listening online at work. Last year they combined one device + internet into a single package, but I’m still paying about the same. It’s still expensive, so after reading all the comments above, I’ll look into “renegotiating” my contract come time to renew again.
Since then, I’ve really enjoyed some of the added online stations, like Chill Instrumental (great background music for when I’m working on really brain-intensive stuff) and Classic Rock BBQ (which was really nice to listen to the sounds of a sizzling grill during cold winter days). Having a couple of the shows on demand is nice as well, as I don’t always get to catch them when they air, and sometimes I just really want my Dark Wave during work.
Also, you just reminded me that I still really want to find a TV/stereo repair person that can get the double cassette decks working again on my old Pioneer stereo again, lol.
@TrickyKitty Good luck with finding a repair person…they’re all aging out mostly as no one can make a living any more repairing home entertainment equipment.
If your unit turns on (lights up) but the tapes won’t advance, chances are what your Pioneer stereo needs are a couple of drive belts for the tape drive. Those fail far and away more often than the electronics. You can also clean the heads with a cotton swab and some isopropyl alcohol.
If you can find the belts, it is a bit tedious to replace them, but not impossible. Check out: ebay Pioneer belts
It just takes simple tools such as a good [viz., sharp] Philips head screw driver, a small flat blade screwdriver etc. and maybe a pair of needle nose pliers, some spare time, and a lot of patience. As with most things these days, one can find YouTube videos on jobs like this. Here’s one link, which is not the best as the guy has the camera positioned to the side and he is in the way for most of the shots where you really want to see the details. YouTube repair of Pioneer CT-W802R dual cassette player/recorder
Or you could send it off to someplace like this Pioneer Cassette repair, though it would not be cheap, with shipping and minimal charges. I’ve never used them, as I have repaired all of my cassette recorders myself, along with myriad other gadgets, the latest being a couple of defunct air fryers (blown thermal fuses) and a FoodSaver vacuum sealer with a bad seal strip.
If and when you get it repaired, I highly recommend transferring all of your cassette tapes to digital media. I did this several years ago for cassettes and vinyl records. You get a USB codec Behringer USB codec and some cables to hook the analog output of the player to the codec modem which does the analog to digital conversion. I did this with an older Windows laptop as the digital receiver.
Then once the files are captured with an audio editing program, you can trim the beginnings and ends of the files as needed and save the files in whatever audio format you like best.
I used PolderbitS for this but the guy, Rudy Koch, died and that software, which was the best, is no longer available. Ashampoo may have something that would work. If you create mp3 files, I recommend MP3Tag from Florian Heidenreich in Germany (shareware), for labeling etc.
You can get it all for about $5 a month. Usually this includes 1 vehicle radio or portable device, plus streaming.
If you don’t renew, they will spam you with this sort of offer. Or you might be able to call and get it.
Be sure to pay with a privacy.com or other “special purpose, usually zero balance” type card. So they can’t auto bill you if you forget to cancel.
There are topics in Slickdeals explaining in detail of you want more of an idea what common offers people get.
$22 a month is for people who just aren’t paying attention. That’s insane.
@f00l
/giphy insane
@f00l Yep my mother in all got a bill for $900 for three years in mail. Thankfully she paid by check.
They take advantage of older people too.
@f00l @joebuddah what’s a mother in all?
@f00l @njfan lol. Mother in law
You just have to call up each year around your renewal date and tell them you are cancelling and suddenly they have a new offer for you. They tell you that this is a one time offer and your subscription will renew at the higher rate next year (which it will) but you have to call and threaten to cancel to get the lower rate. Have been doing it for over 20 years and it is a PITA but worth it.
With taxes and fees the mid tier plan. Is around $70 a year. Which is what I do. The top tier plan has more comedy , sports and howard stern. Set a reminder on your phone for 360 days to remind you to cancel it. When that day comes up call , or web chat with a rep and tell them you want to cancel.
I just renewed, if you do the top tier plan you get an free echo dot.
Agree with the other posts, $5/mo is now the baseline “non-sucker” price for access, including the online service (which you want).
If you take the trial and let it expire, or cancel a current subscription, eventually you will get a “come back” offer for $99 for 3 years which is the best I’ve ever seen – but I don’t think the phone reps are authorized to give this to you unless you’ve been solicited for it.
Whatever you do don’t authorize them to keep your card number on file; if you have the type of card that allows you to create a one-time access, use that.
@Sardinicus i tried to get a multi-year offer like that when my car’s free trial was up damn near a decade ago. I checked the web and saw people referencing it, so I called and said i would like that deal or to cancel. They asked for something off the letter I got in the mail, and when I didn’t have that they said no. I cancelled and haven’t looked back. I bought three years for $300 i think back in early 2000s with one of those Delphi dockable XM radios that had the boombox, and once it lapsed they wanted too much and I also let that go. Most technology gets cheaper over time, not more expensive.
Also, the Privacy card or its equivalent if your CC offers it is the best hack for dealing with potentially shady subscriptions/services. Everyone should have it.
I had a Sirius free trial when I bought a new car. It was OK, but I live in a hilly forested area and it dropped out a lot, which was too annoying, so I dropped it after the 3 free months plus 3 month reduced rate extension. Now, a year later, I just got a notice in the mail that they will turn it back on from May 26 - June 8. I hope that includes the streaming, which is what I used most when I had it before.
@macromeh I live in the DFW area (major metroplex) and I’ve been getting a bunch of drops recently. I’m hoping it just because this is our month of rain and the connectivity issues are weather related. But it is annoying. Fortunately it usually picked back up in a couple of seconds (and it’s not as bad as the static on AM when there’s lightning), but it is annoying.
@gt0163c @macromeh
I’m in Ft Worth; my reception in the car (Toyota Highlander) is strong. At the house (using a very old mobile radio unit connected to home stereo with stationary antenna) it’s a bit more spotty - some conditions seem to cause intermittent satellite searches or system resets.
On the frequent trips to Lubbock and occasional ones to Denver, the SiriusXM performance has been flawless (unlike cell phone coverage).
@macromeh they kick it on once or twice a year for free holiday weekends during popular road trip holidays. My wife keeps a preset on her home screen for XM to know when it’s working.
If you park your car in an enclosed garage for an extended period of time when the subscription is up, it seems that it will miss all the deactivation signals (they seem to be sent rapidly at first and then with diminishing frequency) and you can have satellite radio for an unknown period of time. There is a vehicle that stays in the parking garage at work that still has XM whenever I drive it.
@djslack Interesting - my car has been parked in the garage a lot since I started working from home in March 2020. I guess they must have caught me on a rare excursion, since the XM was deactivated shortly after I cancelled.
Just a bit of detail:
The “$5 a month plus taxes for 12 months deal” should include ALL channels (not a reduced speciality package).
And it should include one portable or home or vehicle radio. And one additional streaming login. (can be used simultaneously with the physical radio)
I paid for the year upfront using a privacy.com card (links to a low use low balance payment method), the privacy.com card set up specifically and only for siriusxm
That card is currently set to allow $0 in new charges. That last allowed charges setting is easy to change if I want to renew.
It’s this way because I don’t want to have to call and fix or cancel the account after they autobill me some higher amount at the end of the subscription period. Calling them is a bit of a pain.
I don’t know if I’ll keep it after the year is up.
I’ve also heard the best ever deal (aside from the lifetime they prob don’t offer anymore) is the $99 for all channels (1 device, 1 streaming) for 3 years.
I think I’ve never gotten that offer but I don’t read Sirius emails so maybe I have.
For those if you having connection and dropout probs in your car:. Possible use the Sirius app, link your phone to your car, and play it that way. Sometimes I get a better connection result that way, when there’s stuff between me and the satellite.
i just got a flyer in the mail for a “listen free event, May 26 to June 8”. it also has a weblink www.siriusxm.com/deal6 --> which is $5/month for your first 12 months, with the select package (only valid on inactive radios linked to your account). see if that weblink/promo works for you as well.
I hate this type of pricing SiriusXM does, it’s in very bad faith.
Netflix/Spotify etc price doesn’t vary wildly based on your ability to talk to sales people.
@username
Yes. Dealing with the pricing and promo games they play is one reason I don’t keep a constant subscription going. I just get po’d at them.
Also I have a multi-century backlog of audiobooks and podcasts waiting for me. That’s another reason.
Listening to -as opposed to watching - enjoyable crap on YouTube is the other reason.
@f00l @username
That’s what the app YMusic is for.
@mike808 @username
Much of what t listen to (instead of watching) is spoken word content.
Informational humor, shall we say.
The images in the standard app sometimes help me decide whether to play that particular video.
Then I start the vid, turn the phone upside down so I can’t see the screen, and listen via Bluetooth.
I’ll give that ymusic app a try tho.
By the way they have online chat- that’s how I got my price reduced last year. No need to actually talk to a human being.
They’re running a FREE activation until June 8 - only for inactive radios, from what I can tell.
https://www.siriusxm.com/offers/free-listen-4
Also, I got the $60/yr offer ($5/mo) for the “select” package. Didn’t see if that’s the base tier or the one up from that, and below their “premier” package.
To me, their pricing is understandable and reasonable. People who don’t ask for a discount pay full price. People like to haggle to feel like they got a good deal. People that don’t pay a premium in the form of higher prices for the convenience. Seems fair to me.
It’s not like AT&T or Charter or TWC or Dish/Uverse/whatever the satellite brand is now that AT&T ruined and buried the whole product and brand by offering cheap 1-year sucker rates and then not offering any discounts to stay when rates tripled. At least SiriusXM is easy on matching the same offers they give to other subscribers with just a chat or call - just asking for it.
And three tiers is not confusing as far as packages - basic, select, premium, with custom sports (NFL, MLB) due to licensing.
@mike808 It’s an old people tax. I’m not a fan of old people taxes. If it was a small discount that’s one thing but 75% off? Nope.
@sammydog01 You sound like an old person.
Why is that an “old person” tax?
More like a person that values their time and has decided that the time they won’t get back haggling is worth the premium. It’s a progressive tax/pricing model. Rich people pay more. That’s more fair, IMO.
The 75% is their marketing for an “introductory” rate. Shhhh. It’s not really introductory. But you don’t know that if you’re a first-time customer do you?
You buy clothes on sale for “80% off” don’t you? That were sold at full price when they arrived. Same for cars in new vs used or vs older year models. I don’t see the difference. All successful pricing strategies are based on asymmetrical information availability.
@mike808 If you found out that you could argue for a discount using social media or online information of any kind it’s a tax on old people who don’t use those things. The idea that people would pay $22 a month instead of $5 a month because they’re rich and money means nothing to them is absurd.
@sammydog01 When you say “old”, did you mean to say “stupid”? Because the two are not correlated.
Finding out there is a discount isn’t an online or SM only thing. I get mailers trying to get me to reactivate my radio for the $5/mo price.
I don’t think the fact that most advertising has shifted to online media and social media platforms is some vast conspiracy against “old” people. This isn’t just specific to SiriusXM. It plain old marketing. And because it is targeted (inactive radio owners), they can’t use broadcast media like TV or print.
@mike808 @sammydog01 The net result is that ‘old people media’, including newspaper advertising and local tv stations, don’t feature ads for SiriusXM. Those mailers miss the fervent Luddites because they’re not the target audience. The gap is widening.
@mike808 @OldCatLady You only get the mailers if you cancel your subscription. So if you buy a car with SiriusXM and don’t cancel how are you supposed to know it’s a thing? You just pay the renewal fee. And I would bet that the bulk of people paying the higher price are older.
@OldCatLady @sammydog01 Older people also have more disposable income. I don’t see the problem.
The discounts are offered if you cancel service. It’s called retention. The expense (revenue loss) comes from a different budget than marketing/advertising for new customers. I would expect that to be mostly at the dealers and manufacturers to highlight the inclusion of the radio in the car.
If you’re current subscription is about to expire, call them and ask to transfer the call to retention and ask for a discounted plan to stay.
If you threaten to cancel your existing subscription, then be prepared to do just that. That will start the clock on the retention offers.
Bottom line, if you want a discount, ask for it. The worst they can do is say no. If you think you should just get offered the best discount/terms because you’re special, then good luck with that.
@mike808 @OldCatLady @sammydog01
@OldCatLady @sammydog01 @ybmuG
The median age of the US in 2019 was 38.5. Source: US Census ACS 2019 1-year data.
Everyone from the midpoint of your 35-44 column are “older people”. I would posit that the sum of disposable income from the right side of your chart from that point (38yo median age of the US in 2019) is greater than the left side. “older people have more disposable income” – QED.
@mike808 @OldCatLady @sammydog01 apples and rhubarb. Not even close to the same unit of analysis so you can’t combine the two.
Median household income unit of analysis is households by the age of the head of household.
Median age is individuals, inclusive of kids down to age of 0. I don’t know too many 3-year-olds that earn an income let alone are the head of a household.
And i think at least a part of the point @sammydog01 was making was reflective not of some artificial dichotomy of age above/below some median, but recognizing that as people age they are less inclined to be tech savvy, less aware of the options that may be available and have less disposable income - the last point being clearly pictured in the graph.
The fact that they could call and ask for a discount doesn’t recognize that they more likely won’t. And that, coupled with the size of the discrepancy makes it a little more of a hardship. It’s hard to believe companies don’t know that.
@therealjrn I just called and got the promotional rate extended- $4.99 a month for a year plus a dollar and change in fees and taxes. It’s worth that to not have to mess around with my phone and bluetooth. Plus I get the app on my phone with extra channels.
https://www.siriusxm.com/plans/music-entertainment?d=Desktop
@sammydog01 Thank you so much! I guess I ended up waiting long enough and got the $5 a month deal in an email AND a snail mail letter!
So I went ahead and signed up for it. I also got my married girlfriend a subscription for her new used Chevy Tahoe (which her husband had slammed into a curb or something and it had to go into the shop. The truck came back with no Sirius service on it any more…grr) I guess they had to disconnect the battery or something…
It was interesting to find out how much they track which radio ID matches which car. I called in with my friend’s radio ID and the nice lady said that her name didn’t match the owner of the vehicle…I was able to recall her Dad’s name and SHAZAAM We got the Sirius radio turned on under dad’s name and my CC#…I don’t think hubby is allowed to drive the truck any more.
Anyway, Google Home is all set up to play the stations here at my house, and I have it in the car of course…so I don’t use any steenkin’ apps. lol, except Google Home of course!
I love the shit out of it.