Accentuate the Positive

The XM channel switch happened at a minute before midnight (eastern time). It was sad listening to the channels that were being killed off - they were all playing songs about endings - "Closing Time", "Last Dance", "My Heart Will Go On", "So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday", "Sing Me to Heaven" . . .you get the idea. Except for the few that were angry, and they were sort of funny (in a sad way), especially the one that played "How to kill a Radio Consultant".

I got concerned for a second when the 40s went silent, but then it came back. The first song they played after the switch was "Accentuate the Positive". :) Sirius didn't have a comparable channel, so I am really hoping that they will keep channel 4 the same as it has been. Most of the other merging channels are switching to Sirius DJs and playlists. It's hard to tell, so far, if the 40's on 4 will change much, but I'll be listening often so hopefully I'll get an idea soon of whether it's changed. They are already doing the "XM/Sirius" station identifications instead of just XM. I know lots of DJs and programming people were let go, which I hate. I just hope the music on the channels I like doesn't suffer.

Cinemagic changed from channel 27 to 76. The screen says that 76 is indeed Cinemagic, but apparently it's off the air right now. I hope that's sorted out by morning. I'm anxious to hear if it still sounds like Cinemagic! (ETA- No Cinamagic until January 2! They're using the bandwidth for a Christmas channel. I'll have to wait till then to see how it's changed.)

The first Christmas channel, Holly, has started. I do love Christmas music but I won't listen to it till Thanksgiving. I am glad they brought it back. There will be several other Christmas channels starting soon, and I am looking forward to seeing if they bring back all of the ones that they had last year. There was one that mostly had weird/humorous Christmas songs, and I heard a couple of songs from the Adventurers Club on there last year, so I am especially hoping that one returns.

There are a few new channels available now that I am interested in (like "Radio Margaritaville" and "Siriusly Sinatra"), but overall I much would rather have XM back instead of XM/Sirius. Still, I'll give it a chance. If the channels I love have changed too much then I will just cancel my subscription. I hope it doesn't come to that, though. Even though I love my Ipod I listen to XM most of the time. I always find new songs to download to my Ipod by listening to it, and I would hate to lose that.

They just did a "Savoy Express" identification on the 40s channel, which makes me feel better. . . it's a really good sign - I was afraid they would have stopped calling it that. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll have a better feel for whether it's still the same channel I love. I hope it is!