Edition #05: The latest news from SiriusXM.
There's way too many news to get to so let's get right to it.
Friday, July 1st, 2022
Welcome everybody to the news part of the weekly newsletter that I like to call SeriousXM. This is the newsletter that covers all things SiriusXM that you may not know about since SiriusXM themselves doesn’t bring you the news and events in a weekly newsletter, the way I do it.
I only mention this because we’re getting new subscribers in and, the most exciting part, donations are coming in! I’m very overwhelmed by the support and if you want to donate, and missed the announcement, I’ll throw the link to do so at the end of today’s newsletter.
But first, the news is the news and this is Where The News Comes First™ (™ by KCRA-TV Sacramento). There’s a lot, honestly, this week so here’s the very latest.
The Latest News
SiriusXM + Comcast = 🤝
Probably the biggest news that came from the service this week is that, for SiriusXM subscribers, you can now listen to all 425 channels of the service (traditional ones plus online-only channels) on Comcast’s Xfinity cable boxes.
The SiriusXM app has been expanded into cable TV boxes with Xfinity’s X1, Flex, and XClass TV.
This means that music, news, sports, entertainment, and Howard Stern could be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home on a TV set from Comcast. SiriusXM does note in the future that its video library will be available soon on there as well, which will be good if you wanna see video moments of The Howard Stern Show (weekdays 7-11am ET/3-7am PT on Howard 100 - XL).
The company is delivering a special FREE 3-month trial to SiriusXM’s Platinum Streaming Plan (meaning all the channels under the ☀️. I know. Go ask yours truly.).
So, if you have Comcast and use X1, Flex, or XClass TV, then say SiriusXM in the voice remote or by finding it in their app store. Sign in with your account and then BAM, you're in.
This agreement will also allow users to customize their own Pandora stations within the app as well, and they can listen to a world of podcasts that SXM currently offers, including Freakonomics Radio, Pod Save America, all those pod series from Marvel and Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, among others.
For those who don’t have Comcast, its okay. Smart streaming sticks usually have SiriusXM on their app stores, including the TiVo Stream 4K, Chromecast with Android TV, and the ever so mightly popular Roku. Plus, smart speakers (including yours truly’s Google Nest Hub), smartphones, tablets, radio products (like the Wi-Fi Sound Station), and, of course, their own web player at SiriusXM.com.
NOTE: Content available will depend on the plan you subscribe to, whether it be Music and Entertainment, Music Showcase, or the popular Premium plan.
A new season of a Williams sisters documentary podcast.
The second season of All-American: Venus and Serena are coming on Wednesday, July 13th. This podcast covers the decades-long story of Venus and Serena Williams, still two of the most popular tennis players in the world today.
This season will consist of ten episodes with the trailer available here.
Hosted by sports reporter Cecil Harris, the podcast looks at the best and worst moments of their careers through interviews with retired tennis players, fans, journalists, and their former coach, Rick Macci.
While there will be great moments discussed, there will be ugly moments, detailing an ugly side of Black Excellence across America. How it shames, resists, and ignores them, until they are ignorable no more. Gripping, but revealing, and troubling.
The podcast will be available on Stitcher, the SXM App, and wherever you get your audio, starting Wednesday, July 13th. If you love the Williams sisters, and their careers, then this is a definite must-hear in your podcast feed.
Joe Madison is staying at SiriusXM.
One of America’s most recognized African-American broadcasters is staying put with SiriusXM.
This week, the service signed up with Joe Madison to a new multi-year deal (terms weren’t disclosed) that’ll keep him as host of Joe Madison - The Black Eagle exclusively on SiriusXM Urban View (Channel 126) on weekday mornings from 6:00-10:00 a.m. E.T.
Madison is a National Radio Hall of Famer, a civil rights activist, a former national political director of the NAACP, and an author.
Under the new agreement, SiriusXM says that he’ll continue to host the program from his Washington, D.C. studio as its become THE program for politicians and newsmakers to stop by and steer the conversation and debate on some of today’s most pressing issues (and boy are there a lot of them lately).
Scott Greenstein is SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Officer:
“Joe’s legacy of work speaks for itself. Joe is a leader and a motivator who inspires his audience to raise their voices and get involved. I’m thrilled that Urban View listeners will continue to start their day with Joe for many more years.”
As a matter of fact, he launched two civil rights campaigns last year that made national headlines, including a four-year fight to create America’s first federal anti-lynching law, the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which was signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden back in March.
SiriusXM’s Service Lane for Shop Program. Who knew?
Wow. A simple concept, and a neat idea. However, I have not heard of this program until this week.
Apparently, there’s something called the Service Lane for Shop program over at SiriusXM. Its a recently new program that Auto Shops can sign up for free (yep, doesn’t cost anything for the shop) and then use to program to reward customers for being loyal to the shop with three-month FREE trials to SiriusXM. How sweet is that huh?
If eligible, customers could be walking away with a three-month Platinum trial in their cars. However, if there’s no SiriusXM available on the car, then a three-month Streaming Platinum trial is offered instead.
Ratchet and Wrench (a magazine targeted toward auto care centers) report that over 8,000+ shops and 18,000+ auto dealers nationwide are already participating in the program, translating to over 146 million SXM-equipped vehicles on the road today. That also includes most new cars from the late 2010s into the 2020s.
So, pretty neat, huh? Its FREE for the auto shops to participate and FREE for customers to receive the trial. Its a win-win situation.
If you know an auto shop that you frequently like to visit to get your car repairs, and know that they’ll be interested in this service, they recommend visiting SiriusXMforShops.com and completing their online enrollment form. From there, no credit card needed, and no extra effort from the shop as SiriusXM handles it from there.
If you do have questions about this program or need help with enrollment, then e-mail SiriusXM at SiriusXMforShops@siriusxm.com or just call them at 1-833-384-5046. Again, this is for auto shops that would be interested in enrolling in this program. Considering a lot of them are just mom and pop shops, this is a fantastic idea.
SiriusXM 🍁 improves its pilot program.
You bet you didn’t know SiriusXM is more than just radio, right? Well over to our north, SiriusXM Canada has improved its Aviation Pilot Express weather plan for pilots starting at $29.99/month (CAD = $23.21 USD at the time of this newsletter).
According to Wings magazine, it has added new key features, including satellite-delivered weather radar, METARs, TAFs, AIRMETs, and SIGMETs (pilot/airline programs for weather information), plus lightning, winds aloft, and icing. Some of the benefits include no line-of-sight restrictions, no altitude limitations, and continuous coverage from coast-to-coast.
To the average reader, this means nothing. But for those who do know somebody who’s a Canadian pilot, this is a good time to tell them about this plan. It comes on select Garmin avionics and an applicable weather receiver. Plus, Pilots can use the Garmin Pilot app with a portable Garmin GDL 51 or 52 receive. Again, to the average reader, it means nothing, but it does for a pilot who subscribes to this newsletter.
Pilots who want to try it can do so for FREE for three months plus receive its radio channels.
This is a part of SiriusXM’s Aviation unit which offers its weather and audio services in Canada, the coastal waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the 48 contiguous United States (sorry Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands).
College Football Saturday Night is back on for this year.
Its Summer. Its starting to feel swampy or dry, and hot across the country (unless you live in an area where it seems to be cool and nice). The weather is getting miserable for some since that also includes daily rain chances (okay, I’m probably only talking about where yours truly lives. Hahaha).
However, if there’s one thing to look forward to from here on out? Fall. Cooler temperatures, beautiful nature scenes, wonderful colors of leaves changing, and yes… the return of College Football. And for the folks of the largest college sports radio network in the country, they are ready.
Learfield announces the return of College Football Saturday Night, hosted by Mike Golic, Jr. as analyst and Sloane Martin handling play-by-play duties.
There’ll be 13 games on the weekly Saturday slate with a selected bowl game TBA later in the season. It will air nationwide on local radio stations, but more especially, it will air on SiriusXM.
Where on the service? I don’t know as of yet, as its too early to tell. My guess is ESPN-U Radio (Channel 84) since that’s where a lot of games are broadcasted. But it could also be on a different channel from week to week, so once there’s official confirmation on that, you’ll be the first to know on Twitter, which by the way, we do have: @SeriousXM_News.
New Channels
Just one new temporary channel to tell you about. Yeah, its one of those pop-up limited-engagement times on the service again, but it arrives just in time for the 4th of July holiday and honestly, most of the summer.
They’re back!
The Beach Boys’ official channel, Good Vibrations: The Beach Boys Channel, returns to SiriusXM for a limited two-month engagement starting today July 1st all the way until August 29th on Channel 105, home to SiriusXM’s one of two limited-engagement channels on traditional car radios, and on their App.
The channel will feature the band’s legendary songs from their 60-year career (yeah, they’ve been around forever). This includes their early songs which definitely talked a lot about surf, sand, girls, and cars, all the way to their biggest hits, hard-to-find rarities, Cappella vocals, backing tracks, alternate versions, exclusive stories from family and band members (past and present), band members’ solo work and much more. I mean, it could go on and on and on.
It will kick off with a special Beach Boys Sounds of Summer Super Mix that will air throughout the Fourth of July Weekend. Three-song sets from the band’s new Sounds of Summer collection will air at the top of each hour throughout the entire long weekend.
The channel will also feature a listener-voted countdown, composed of 60 songs for The Beach Boys’ 60th anniversary. Voting will begin today and the countdown will air beginning Friday, July 29th.
Then in August, there will be a special featuring all of The Beach Boys’ Billboard Top 10 singles: A-side followed by B-side, in chronological order.
Two-month limited engagements are rare, but this is on SiriusXM is happy to do, considering its Summertime after all.
Events
Oh boy, be prepared for this section because of this weekend… THE JULY 4th WEEKEND!!! This means sports, surf, sand, beach, cooking, food, and fun on the long three-day weekend for many of you. Don’t you worry… SiriusXM is gonna keep you company the entire weekend.
This list probably won’t comprise everything taking place at SiriusXM, but these are the most notable. I will mention sporting events too because its a huge sporting weekend as well.
🎾: The Sport’s Super Bowl is back… Wimbledon.
Its back again for another year. The Super Bowl of Tennis. Time to hit the courts in London and take part in The Championships at Wimbledon.
The competition is very much well underway, and from now until the Finals on Sunday, July 10th, SiriusXM will have everyday coverage of the event with up to 15+ hours possible (yes, that much) of coverage. From 4am ET (1am PT) until the end of the day’s play (over on a Sports Play-by-Play channel, Channel 204), SiriusXM will offer point-by-point action on all courts, including the legendary Centre Court, plus commentary, highlights, the latest news, and more.
ESPN Xtra (Channel 81) will have all the coverage and analysis as the broadcasts are courtesy of ESPN Radio (Channel 80) which holds the rights to the Wimbledon broadcasts on the radio in the United States. Listeners will hear the Wimbledon Radio broadcast, which is the official audio broadcast of The All England Lawn Tennis Club, where Wimbledon takes place.
50 songs from artists who’ve Gone Solo.
On this 4th of July weekend, SiriusXM will answer the one question few have dared to ask… Who’s the mightiest gone-solo musician of them all?
On their music talk channel VOLUME (Channel 106), they’ll take a look at 50 artists who have claimed Independence from their bands and prove that they have amazing solo music careers in their own right.
The exclusive countdown was created by Chris Molanphy — host of the Slate podcast Hit Parade — using a weighted formula that includes hit albums, album chart “group boost,” RIAA certifications, Hot 100 performance, length of a solo career, and Rock Hall induction status; in other words, very complex science.
Kicking off with songs by former Eurythmics member Annie Lennox, Wu-Tang Clan rapper Method Man and Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker, respectively, Gone Solo features an eclectic mix of era-spanning hits by artists who left their groups, but not the music charts.
The five-hour-long (yes, its that long) special Gone Solo will air twice on the 4th of July on VOLUME… 12-5pm ET (9am-2pm PT) and 5-10pm ET (2-7pm PT). However, if you don’t want to wait, you can go online or on their app.
The ESSENCE Festival is in New Orleans. SiriusXM has it too.
Another in-person event missed due to the COVID-19 pandemic is back on SiriusXM with the ESSENCE Festival of Culture. The can’t-miss event is back and airs now until Sunday.
For today and tomorrow, tune in to Heart & Soul (Channel 48) while tuning in to Kirk Franklin’s Praise (Channel 64) for Sunday’s coverage.
Hosted by Caymen Kelly and Michel Wright, they’ll bring you artists like Patti LaBelle, New Edition, Tamar Braxton, and more.
Other Events for the long weekend.
That is some of the events taking place, but here are the others! We mentioned some last week so we won’t mention them here today.
Music
Hip-Hop Nation (Channel 44) will secede coverage over to SoundCloud Radio (available online-only) for the entire weekend.
Willie’s Roadhouse (Channel 59) will have Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic throughout the holiday.
Sports
SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90) gives you a two-hour conversation with Richard Petty, The King. It will air Saturday from 9-11pm ET (6-8pm PT) and will also air the 1979 Daytona 500 at 12 Midnight ET (9pm PT).
🏁: They’ll also have coverage this weekend of the Henry 180 on Saturday at 2pm ET (11am PT) and the Kwik Trip 250 on Sunday (same times).
🏈: This weekend is the first-ever USFL Championship between the Birmingham Stallions and the Philadelphia Stars. It will air on Sunday at 7:30pm ET (4:30pm PT) on FOX Sports Radio (Channel 83).
⛳: Coverage of the John Deere Classic will be on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio (Channel 92) today at 12 Noon ET (9am PT), and both Saturday and Sunday at 1pm ET (10am PT).
🏁 More Auto Racing:
Formula 1 coverage of the British Grand Prix will be on ESPN Xtra (Channel 81). Qualifying will be on Saturday and the race on Sunday, both begin at 10am ET (7am PT).
IMSA coverage of the Chevrolet Grand Prix will be this Sunday at 3pm ET (12pm PT) on one of SiriusXM’s Sports Play-by-Play channels (Channel 207).
Talk and Comedy
Doctor Radio (Channel 110) will have safety summer tips throughout the 4th of July holiday, including summer skin safety and protection, swimming and water safety, travel safety and tips, and more.
Netflix is a Joke Radio (Channel 93) will play various clips from comedians talking about different parts of the U.S. That will air on the 4th of July from 12-4pm and 7-11pm ET (9am-1pm and 4-8pm PT)
CNN Originals (Channel 121) will have a 12-hour marathon of United Shades of America, hosted by W. Kamau Bell on the 4th of July from 7am-7pm ET (4am-4pm PT).
That’s it! Its a long email but we got a long weekend coming up, so there you go.
I just wanna take this time and opportunity to say thank you for reading, and for donating! Yes, if you are unaware, I’ve opened up to donations (optional) to help support my efforts with this newsletter. If you wanna support it in any way, Buy Me A Smile. I’ve already received some donations and I appreciate it. Trust me, it will go a long way and I am hopeful that more will come my way soon.
Even without the donations, I am getting more subscribers and I seriously can’t thank you enough for your support.
If you are new and enjoy reading this, then share it with friends and family.
We’re also on Twitter too, posting breaking news and updates up-to-the-minute as it happens: @SeriousXM_News.
I’m done for this week but we’re back next week with more throwback content and more news from SiriusXM. Until then, have a great long 4th of July holiday weekend!
SeriousXM is a newsletter service of TheRolyPoly Productions.
So, for the Comcast subscribers, are the actual SiriusXM channels actually included, (like they used to be on DirecTV) or is it just another device from which to authenticate to one's existing account?