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Sirius XM Prices Go Up in March
Both satellite radio services have officially announced plans to raise prices.
Sirius XM
January 28, 2009 | by Rachel Cericola

About a week ago, we heard that Sirius XM was planning to jack up its subscription fees. Naturally, that news didn’t go over so well with a lot of current subscribers. It wasn’t a bad dream. It’s happening—and you’ll see a reflection in your bill starting March 11.

After that date, those of you with multiple subscriptions will have to pay an extra two bucks a month, making the cost $8.99 per additional account. Also, online listening will no longer be free. Supposedly, they are tweaking the service “to near CD-quality digital audio.” Of course, that will cost another $2.99 per month.

Back in those pre-merger days, Sirius told the FCC that it would not raise prices on its basic $13 monthly service and other programming packages. By raising other areas of its service, they have apparently found a loophole. Apparently, there might be one for subscribers, too.

Engadget says that both XM and Sirius have web pages that will allow you to lock into your current rates. That’s contingent on subscribers renewing service. So what happens if you have a month-to-month program? It looks like you’ll have to fork over a year’s worth of fees to get grandfathered.

Has the price hike soured you on Sirius XM services? Are you planning to cancel your services? Sound off in the comments section below.



Rachel Cericola - Contributing Writer
Over the past 15 years, Rachel Cericola has covered entertainment, web and technology trends. Check her out at www.rachelcericola.com.



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Comments (45) Most recent displayed first.
Posted by Mike  on  02/03/09  at  01:13 PM

My apologies, it is stated under the terms and conditions, about half way down the page.
F.2 Renewal: Your Subscription will continue for the length of the initial term you select on your Plan (“Subscription Term”) and at the end of your prepaid Subscription Term, it will automatically renew for another prepaid period of the same length unless you choose to cancel prior to that renewal

Posted by Mike  on  02/03/09  at  01:04 PM

John, I understand the “Accept” part being a contract, but what I’m saying is it never states in that contract that they will continue to renew your subscription automatically.
But I am not argueing the fact of whether it was right or not. I’m just trying to let others know that don’t assume that your subscription stops when the one or two year subscription ends. You have to physically call and cancel.

P.S. They didn’t charge me the cancelation fee outright, but to fix the problem they had to offically cancel all radios and reactivate them, and they wanted me to pay the cancelation fee.

Posted by John  on  02/03/09  at  10:33 AM

Hey Mike, you know that big ACCEPT button at the bottom of the CONTRACT you clicked? That would be your “signature”. This does give them the right to continue to renew your subscription, and yes they did have your approval. My question is how did you have a cancellation fee if your radio was cut off?

Posted by Mike  on  02/03/09  at  09:03 AM

For those of you that say your not renewing, watch your credit card bill closely, in case of automatic renewal by sirius. I have numerous family member’s radios on my account and ran into problem where Sirius had been automatically renewing subscriptions without my knowledge or approval. I only found out after they suspended all the radios for an unknown reason. When I called to find out why, it turned out they tried to renew an account using a credit card I no longer use and had cancelled. They claim that they are allowed to do this and that it is in the contract somewhere (I never signed a contract) and to stop them you have to call and cancel the subscription and pay the cancellation fee.

Posted by Mama Lam  on  02/02/09  at  09:26 AM

I am a HUGE Howard fan and have spent hard earned money on any product he puts out. I even bought that crappy Stilleto that started falling apart immediately. It stops at listening online, however. Why should I pay $3 a month for the internet? This would be on top of my cable which has free music, internet enabled phone, or numerous other ways I can get music for free. I agree with the previous poster, Stern goes then I go.


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