What the heck happened to Bone?

[Golf Guy]

I tuned in to listen to rock and it's now business talk?

[W. J.]

It's the nature of the business, which is why Sirius and XM are gaining popularity each passing day.

[RGeeProductions]

It is now "Off The Wall Street" station now, finance!!!!

[W. J.]

Oh good, we can all get rich while being bored to tears, LOL!!!

Sure glad I have XM in my car/house.

[Golf Guy]

Walt don't tell me you are one of those people who pay for radio when all you have to do is turn on a radio and get it free?

[RGeeProductions]

I'm with you Jim. I won't pay when there is more than enough FM out there PLUS mp3's galore!!!!!

[LongIslandJam]

I'm actually considering going satellite because its the same songs over and over again on terrestrial radio. But like you guys said, its hard to convince yourself to pay for something that's free... Then again they said that about Cable TV and now everyone has it (except me LOL)...

[The Bullfather]

That's why there are CDS and now Ipods!!! Screw paying for satellite, I belong to rhapody online. Use it all the time almost every band album you can think, excpet ac/dc the only band that I could find on there! I have the cds though so makes up for it. Very useful for music gigs, just plug it in between bands and have your own set list and mix!!! Pre-releases all the time and stations of every genre. Satellitle you have to wait for the bands you like lol. Also great about rhaspody is that they give you comparisions to other bands and their influences, so you can learn and check them out. Also cheaper then I-pod's Apple site, songs there are $.99, rhapsody they have songs for $.89. But you don't have to buy them to listen to full songsbox sets and exculsives, no 30 seconds and thats it. I'm done selling them. lol

[W. J.]

Golf Guy, I pay for the radio service, but I buy it in bulk, meaning I pay annually, not monthly. Monthly fee is $12.95, annual works out more like $11.10 per month. NO COMMERCIALS means a lot to me, so it's worth it. Can't stand listening, over and over again, to somebody trying to sell me something I don't want/need to buy. As for CD/MP3 players, CD's are fine, but limited to what you can buy and/or burn, satellite radio just plays without having to do anything but turn on the radio...and, the cost per song, considering the amount of music I can listen to on a 4 hours trip (right, JA), makes satellite more cost effective than buying CD's or on-line...so, it comes down to the choice of the individual. With my sales pitch now over, I can only say FM radio is slowly following AM band into yak-yak-yak oblivion.

As an after thought, FREE radio is a myth, since the ads support it, and you pay for them each time you purchase anything that's advertised (yeah, I know, so do I). The thing of it is, as the music fades from the FM radio, morphing into talk, the listeners will go away, as will the advertising dollars, to be spent elsewhere, like maybe on the right rear quarter of a race car, LOL.

[The Bullfather]

Just like they did with The Box, the same company changed The Bone. We can never have a good rock station and stay the same format, they always have to change it!

[Ace]

Business talk radio has purchased 3 stations, looks like we lose 107.1 and 105.3 as well on March 1st.http://www.businesstalkradio.net/news.shtml#1167303908

[N.Y. racing]

Satellite radio is amazing compared to FM. And it's really not too expensive, I think I paid $9.99 a month when I signed up to Sirius and for almost every type of music, there's at least 3 stations on satellite for it.

[Wheel Racing]

I have had XM for close to 4 years now.I will never listen to regular radio again if I had the choice.XM has Opie and Anthony,Ron and Fez(the entire shows,I know they are on FM again).All the sports I need and want and until now,Nascar Radio which moved to Sirius.XM moved the only 2 shows worth listening to on that station to a new station,so no big loss.We get multiple comedy stations with an array of stand-up routines.How can you not want this service?? $12.95 a month is less than what you will spend on dry cleaning when you spill your coffee all over yourself while flipping thru the terrestrial stations

[Golf Guy]

I'm sorry but I see XM radio as another example of how we are eliminating the local guy from our community. Think of all the local charities and good a smaller local station helps. I can only imagine the amount of donations as compared to a small business like myself. When all the small local hardware stores, Deli's, clothing stores, radio stations and such are eliminated for bigger business you all will be sorry cause those big guys aren't donating to your small local charities or giving you that personal service.
Walt your aversion to advertising puzzles me? Which do you think is more effective, the side of a car at Riverhead or a local radio station? How about if we eliminate all advertising, radio, cars at RH, the JAM and so on? Unless you have committed you money to a long term advertising campaign it is easy to just knock advertising in general. This is just my humble opinion...

[W. J.]

The side of a car at Riverhead. It's there for me to read, not screaming at me.

My aversion to advertising was fostered by ad agencies coming up with an inane way of presenting the product, such as screaming at me, rather than just getting the message out. I don't like advertising in it's current form, in any electroninc media, because I know how they formulate their campaigns, and it isn't right. They actually hire psychologists to figure out how to make you remember their porduct, no matter how annoying the methodology. While they don't outright lie, they bend the truth by omission of what they consider to be inconvenient facts. I know you are a businessman dependent on advertising, and I didn't mean to offend you, but commercial radio is it's own worst enemy. They've gotten greedy, and a 'music' station has less music and more ads than ever, and it isn't the cost to run the transmitter that drives it, it's the cost of their overpaid 'on air' employees. In the video version of things, TV expanded their 11PM news from 30 to 35 minutes a few years back to, 'give us more news'. Well, maybe they did in the beginning, now they give us more commercials. I have a PVR (cost $4.99 per month), can start watching the 11PM news at 11:10, and be finished (skipping the commercials) by 11:30. The last 5 minutes of the program is 3 1/2 minutes of ads, and then they come on and say good night. Not a service I'm interested in supporting. I'd rather pay the $4.99.
By the way, this is the shortened version of my feelings on this, as the full explanation would take a space equivalent to "War & Peace". JMHO.