Dance classics

[tvguy101]

Woke up this morning to find out that SiriusXM in the U.S.A. has dumped BBC Radio 1... for disco. I'm gutted I can't get Scott's show in my car anymore, but still glad I can "listen again" online through the Radio 1 website.

[DC]

you sure they haven't just moved it or something? shocking if it is the case though, it'd be like sky over here booting fox news off've the channel list.

[tvguy101]

Nope, it's GONE. There's a repeating loop telling listeners to go to their other "pop music" stations. Now they're claiming it's the BBC's fault the channel was dropped. Here's hoping a North America iPlayer comes sooner than later!

[Timsk]

Surprised by this. Suggestions here to cancel subs and formally complain, though if this comes as a direct result of an imminent release of the US iPlayer I can't see it changing...

[R94N]

I think there is an American iPlayer in the pipeline. It would have to have some kind of advertising on it (obviously, because they don't pay the TV licence in the US). It would make sense and also mean so many less people would be pirating BBC content simply because they can't get it anywhere else.

[James R]

SackMoylesNow Cecilia Bartholemew

I have a major success to report!..BBC Radio One has been taken off the Sirius network.Great news but only the start

7 hours ago

[Tom.]

I think there is an American iPlayer in the pipeline. It would have to have some kind of advertising on it (obviously, because they don't pay the TV licence in the US). It would make sense and also mean so many less people would be pirating BBC content simply because they can't get it anywhere else.

Not ads, a subscription based service apparently...

[tvguy101]

I'll welcome the U.S. iPlayer once it launches. Between radio and TV on-demand I'd be willing to pay around $25 USD per month for it. I'm just nervous since the news that's been out there thus far is that it'll be iPad-only at the start.

[Viv]

There is a campaign on twitter #getr1backonsiriusxm

also twitter's jordan327 has written an article about it www.twitter.com/jordan327 - as per usual, I am blocked from simply copying the link, but there's stuff in reply to me.

I saw someone say on twitter it may be brought back from August 16th, but others are not sure if this is just Canada.

[FloydNo5]

I called to cancel the internet player portion of my subscription to Sirius yesterday (sadly I'm stuck otherwise as I have a lifetime account for my actual radio unit) and was told that due to the volume of calls, complaints, emails and so on that they have top management looking into resolving the contract issues with the BBC and hope to have it back as soon as possible. They then gave me 2 free months to ride this out (as if I care much for the other stations on Sirius all that much) and told me that I'd be informed when it was back on the air. This is much better than the copy/paste boilerplate reply they gave to my email missive I sent yesterday AM. (I am waiting for a reply to my follow up message calling them out for ignoring my first email as I'd pre-emptively addressed their poor excuses in that original email).

Here's hoping it's back soon - but in the meantime thank goodness for the iPlayer! If I could just get that in my car for the commute I'd be golden!

[Viv]

Just awful. Really. forgot to say there is also a facebook campaign "get bbc radio 1 back on sirius".

[FloydNo5]

There is. The one (I think there are several) I "liked" has over 1000 members in the first 24 hrs. If you go to the SiriusXM facebook page and click to show "Most recent" for the wall instead of Sirius posts, you'll see the cavalcade of complaints. Page after page of us disgruntled types telling them to bring Radio 1 back. Many have adopted a green BBC Radio 1 logo with some scrawled text on it, so it makes it very easy to see the level of discontent.

[Timsk]

The UK 'license fee' amounts to approx $20 a month, so it's heartening to hear you'd consider paying $5 a month more for BBC content. Do you get BBC America on standard TV channels, or is that a subscription service too?

[FloydNo5]

I too would be willing to pay for access to more BBC content.

As for your question about BBC America, it's not generally a standard channel but where it ends up depends largely on your satellite or cable provider. For example, my cable provider does not provide it as a basic offering, but when I buy an expanded tier for some ever changing number of dollars per month I get it along with 100 other channels, most of which offer nothing I care to watch. However, were I to switch to DirecTV satellite service (a move I'm considering) I'd get BBC America on the basic tier.

So, to answer your question, it is usually a subscription service here, but it's mixed in with so many other channels it's hard to wrap your head around how much you really pay for it - though as I said, many of the channels on those other tiers are not worth watching anyway. Sadly, there is no a la carte option.

The UK 'license fee' amounts to approx $20 a month, so it's heartening to hear you'd consider paying $5 a month more for BBC content. Do you get BBC America on standard TV channels, or is that a subscription service too?

[James R]

Hey Guys we have a SIRIUS update. The BBC’s commercial arm BBC Worldwide has been in partnership with SIRIUS Satellite Radio to broadcast Radio 1 on their main network since 2005.This agreement has now unfortunately come to an end and BBC Worldwide are in current discussions with the satellite radio station to find ways to continue to bring BBC Radio 1 to the US audience.We will keep you posted http://bbc.in/phoDDz

http://www.facebook.com/bbcradio1

[Viv]

I wonder why it all suddenly did come to an end.

[Tom.]

Because the 5 year agreement came to an end. Can you not read?

[Viv]

Clearly not. Lol anyhow half of sirius listeners shd shortly be round here. ive managed to get a load of them from scott's timeline on twitter.

[Viv]

The facebook campaign continues to go from strength to strength (Facebook -= get BBC Radio1 back on sirius fm)

Chris Sutton has posted "I tweeted this:- #bringbackBBCR1 lets get onboard with @robbiewilliams and donate $10 to unicef. Our campaigns facebook page has 2600+ members thats $26K!! in the hope that other people tracking that #tag will tweet about it and get in on the donation. We help a great cause and we might get our #tag trending if it helps the campaign great if not who cares unicef needs the money!"

What an excellent idea.

[E*F*4L]

how much does sirius cost a year anyway ?

[tvguy101]

A single-year "all channels" plan costs $145 USD per year plus local taxes for roughly 250 channels including sports and talk. Music channel-only plans are around $120 USD per year plus taxes.

That this many people are canceling because of the dropping of Radio 1 alone speaks volumes for the quality of the rest of the programming available on the service.

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

and there's another show that we get ripped off by services like Sky here... actually that even works out less than the Licence Fee tax (difference is the BBC is often worth it, even when they drop stuff like F1, Sky isn't).

[E*F*4L]

$145 seems a lot for radio tbh :/

[tvguy101]

$145 seems a lot for radio tbh :/

If you heard how bad commercial radio is here in the States you'd probably pay that much too. Don't forget - this is live, coast to coast, in a nation where a national FM service like Radio 1 doesn't exist, and where local radio can be near non-existant in certain sparsely populated parts of the country.

[Viv]

The one thing I have always heard is that you cannot simply get, for example, Adele followed by the Foo Fighters, followed by NDubz, the way R1 would randomly pull it off !!