I'm a Sirius Radio subscriber. I didn't sign up with them for Howard Stern, BTW. Actually, I don't like talk radio at all. I like music when I'm driving, and I don't like commercials. So, satellite radio seemed like a good idea.
But last night, I got an email from Sirius Radio proudly proclaiming that as of next Tuesday, Bill O'Reilly's radio show would be available in their channel line up.
Um... no thanks.
Actually, it doesn't affect me at all, on the surface. I listen to the music channels and nothing else.
But the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I'm sorry, I don't want one penny of my subscriber fees to end up in Bill O'Reilly's pocket.
I checked on it this morning, and found out that they announced the new deal with Fox News last month (Feb. 17), but I don't go to their home page a lot, and I wasn't aware of it until they emailed me last night.
So, when my current period is up (in a few days, actually), I'm going to cancel my Sirius Radio subscription. It hurts a bit, because you have to buy the receiver to start out with them, and the receiver I have isn't going to work with XMRadio. But, I don't care. I'll do without before I'll help make that human sewage richer.
Of course, losing my subscription isn't going to bother Sirius much. But if everybody who thinks O'Reilly is a disgrace quit Sirius, they'd have to notice.
This is the good part of the subscription system. We can act directly against the offending programmer. We don't have to go threaten advertiser's whose products may or may not be useful to us.
I just sent the following email to Sirius customer service:
I just wanted to inform you of my decision to cancel my subscription when my current term is up (which I believe is fairly soon).
Your decision to add Fox News and Bill O'Reilly to your lineup is an unfortunate one. I refuse to have my subscription fees used to suppport this biased, unbalanced news organization, or the ugliness that is Bill O'Reilly.
I am sorry. I wasn't a subscriber for long. But I cannot continue under these circumstances.
If you're a Sirius subscriber and don't want to help pay for Bill O'Reilly's falafel breaks I urge you to do the same.
