I keep getting e-mail from disgruntled XM subscribers. That their favorite channel, #51, Music Lab, has bitten the dust. I’ll print one below.

This is totally fucked up. The promise of satellite radio was to go deep, to provide something for EVERYONE! But the new regime at XM, the Infinity assholes, are turning XM into the bullshit terrestrial radio that they came from. And this makes me CRAZY!

First came channel 49, Big Tracks. With the INANE tagline "Our Classic Rock". This is just the kind of b.s. unlistenable terrestrial classic rock stations use. And the station’s got no DEPTH! Just the same fucking tracks over and over again. With no surprises.

But now it’s worse. Music Lab was booted and what did we get? MORE HITS CHANNELS!!!

We’ve got XM 17, U.S. Country, Country Superstars of the 80s and 90s.

How about XM 26, Flight 26, Modern Hits 90s and Now.

Or XM 30. Hitlist. TODAY’S Hit Music.

Or 68, The Heat, RHYTHMIC HITS!

Or 91, Viva, Latin Pop Hits.

Oh, they brought back Liquid Metal, which had been banished before, but what we’ve now got is endless b.s. hits stations, replicating what is ALREADY AVAILABLE ON XM, their only saving grace being no commercials.

This is a big deal. This is like the death of free-format FM radio, but WORSE! The golden era is OVER!

And what about the people who subscribed to XM ONLY for Music Lab? People like Craig Anderton, the electronic music and instrument GURU! Who signed up for two years, EXPECTING he’d be able to listen to his kind of music. Which he could get nowhere else, which is why he subscribed to XM.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO XM! They don’t have Howard, and the people now running the place have their heads up their ass.

Hi Bob,

In case you were going to write anything on the new XM channels, I thought I’d mention that these new channels came at the expense of one of the coolest radio stations around (in my opinion).

Channel #51 got lost in the shuffle! I know Progressive Rock is probably not your favorite genre, but I know you can probably appreciate a lot of the music. A lot of people are ticked off about this, but the response I got from the top brass at XM was that "the audience wasn’t there."

Below is the letter that I sent, which may explain why that response ticked me off even more.

Dear XM Radio,

Where did XM MUSIC LAB Channel #51 go? Monday morning it just disappeared? And in its place are a bunch of generic Pop, Latin, and Country channels! That’s not what I want!! I’ll trade you all of those stations for Music Lab any day! You obviously don’t understand what you’ve got here! Music Lab was the ONLY outlet for Progressive Rock anywhere, or "Music for Musicians" (as your sweepers used to call it).

Sure, there are some Internet channels doing this format, but you can’t pick those up in your car, and even with broadband, the quality does not even come close to satellite. And all Sirius has is their "Jam Channel" which caters to Dead-Heads, and Phish-Heads. After being a huge advocate from day one, my XM radio has just become junk hardware that I will probably throw in a drawer at home and is now nothing more than an extra expense that I no longer need.

Oh well. I guess it was just too good to be true. A station that would play a full side of Pink Floyd’s "Dark Side Of The Moon" into Genesis, "Supper’s Ready," into some Spock’s Beard, followed by Yes, "Close To The Edge," Jeff Beck, Primus, Gabriel, Crimson, and Zappa! Real music by the best musicians in the world that we couldn’t get anywhere else!

I realize that Progressive Rock is probably a smaller "niche" audience, but isn’t that why we BUY XM in the first place? Niche formats with the best music don’t always justify ratings in every terrestrial market. But when XM came along, you were supposed to change all that?!?! Now we were allowed to listen to the music WE wanted! Not what programmers wanted us to hear! And on top of it, you raised your rates?!?!?!?

Well, fortunately, I still have my iPod.

P.S. You can listen to Music Lab on the Web, but one of my subscribers lives in the boonies where you can’t GET a high speed connection. What is HE supposed to do?