A post by AnonymousXM on XMFan.com reveals that Sirius XM may be getting ready to charge consumer and fleet accounts a royalty fee starting July 15 2009.
In the post AnonymousXM states:
The US Music Royalty Fee will be applied to all music subscriptions that SIRIUS XM offers. The
fee will be implemented on July 29th, 2009. The existing Subscriber base will receive this fee
on their first billing after this date. The fee will be applied to all satellite plans with music content
on a Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annual and all Annual Savings Plans. Lifetime Subscribers, who
have purchased prior to July 29th, will never receive the US Music Royalty Fee. Since the online
products are not satellite based they will not incur the U.S. Music Royalty Fee. Once the fee is
introduced on July 29th, any new activation or conversion will include the fee. As we go through
this training, you will gain a better understanding of how this fee is applied and how to explain it
to the Subscribers. We will be going through different scenarios so you can understand why we
are passing this fee onto our Subscribers, how to diffuse irate Subscribers, and how the
Subscriber can truly benefit by adding longer term plans.
Subscriptions at a rate of $12.95 will be charged a $1.98 monthly, for the US Music
Royalty Fee
Subscriptions with multiple radios will be charged $0.97 monthly, for the US Music
Royalty Fee
Mostly Music plans at $9.99 will be charged a US Music Royalty Fee of $1.53.
Those of you with a lifetime subscription will not be seeing any of these charges.
Not sure if this new is 100% true or not, but thought I would report on it anyways.
Would love to know everyones thoughts on this. Leave a comment below and check out the link to XMFan.com for more info.
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After finding out what a total price of a lifetime subscription, being $499.99, plus a $65.00 music royality fee. I am letting my current subscription run out and going with a digital radio.
I was just on the phone with XM for an hour and no one can explain WTF the royalty fee is…you sign up for the subsription plans, pay your bill and they can’t tell me where my $$$$ went….I think that it is time to start a class action suit against XM/Sirus. Since they have merged with Sirrus, it has been nothing but a complete disaster. I am shutting mine off and just listen to regular radio…or will they start charging us to…????
Liz: that’s a load of crap. It’s quite possible you called an overseas call center and they didn’t explain it very well. The fact is, ALL radio stations already pay a royalty fee for the music you hear. The costs have steadily been going up, though, and XM has decided to pass that fee onto the customer now instead of absorbing it. It is NOT XM Sirius charging you, it’s the government. It’s like a tax- if you don’t buy an artist’s record, the government will tax you for listening to their stuff, and hand it over to the music industry. BTW, you could’ve simply googled MRF to find out what it is. XM’s website explains it clearly.Also, when it comes to “regular” radio, you ARE paying for it, everytime you listen to a commercial.
This is very illegal , reason being , they never sent out notices about their intention to charge you this fee . And all the lifetime subscribers who purchased before July 29th 2009 will never recieve the music royalty fee , THEIR words NOT mine . So in other words , the rest of us were never given the opportunity to save money , by taking a lifetime subscription , when they knew they were going to start charging this extra fee . I’m Sirius-ly thinking about dropping my subscription . I’m still pissed about losing stations I liked when the merger went through , signed a very unhappy customer .
I already canceled all of my radios, not because of the fact that they are passing along the charge to subscribers, but because they are charging nearly triple the approved rate. The rate is set @ 6.5% for 2009 and will max out at 8% in 2012. What mathematical calculations could anyone possibly exist where 15.2% equates to 6.5%? I’ve been emailing Sirius back and forth about their calculation and all they do is dance around the answer telling me that the FCC allows them to pass along the fee to the subscribers. So far, I’ve gotten 4 responses and all of them are the same old canned bullshit and none of them explain their calculations or reasons behond charging so much. Next email will be to the FCC and the FTC to try and get some answers.
I dropped my XM after the free 3 months. They were going to add a hidden fee of $21.99 on top of the yearly fee. This is riduclous. I will just lister to other regular radio stations.