Saturday, January 28, 2017

The nation I live in, according to radio commercials



If you listen to Sirius/XM Radio for an hour, you could fairly come to the conclusion that in the United States,

1. Millions of Americans are carrying at least $10,000 in credit card debt that they "can't" pay back,

2. Millions of Americans have been ducking and dodging the IRS for years because they owe huge amounts of money in back taxes or have not even filed their taxes in like forever.  Presumably they need help because they can't afford Donald Trump's lawyers. AND....

3.  Millions of Americans use CPAP machines that they don't know how to clean properly.   Maybe this is the case- for the first six years I traveled to Louisville to grade Advanced Placement exams for Educational Testing Service I was randomly assigned a roomate, and TWICE the person I was paired with used one of these devices.  That's a remarkable coincidence, or these machines are more common that I could have ever imagined.

I realized last November 8 that I didn't know the United States nearly as well as I thought I did.  But Sirius XM Radio is constantly reminding me what an outlier I am....


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4 comments:

  1. Tal HartsfeldJanuary 31, 2017 at 10:02 AM

    Sirius/XM has commercials?
    You mean you pay for broadcasts wherein they STILL vie for even more of your good money?
    Do they justify this by at least having good programming on their available stations?

    ReplyDelete
  2. John F JameleJanuary 31, 2017 at 1:33 PM

    Yes- the only non-commercial stations are a few music ones, and even they insist on hiring blithering idiot washed up djs instead of just playing music. If right wing and "Top 40" radio didn't dominate the terrestrial stations, it would not be worth it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tal HartsfeldJanuary 31, 2017 at 3:13 PM

      "Just playing music" instead of "blithering washed-up DJs" talking over the song intros
      ...one of the few instances where automation actually has merit.

      Delete
    2. John F JameleFebruary 4, 2017 at 5:10 AM

      Absolutely- I called the customer comment line once and told the operator that the music channels would be infinitely better- not to mention, XM would save a ton of money- if they just ditched the DJs and played music. Clearly they think this is crazy talk and that people LIKE padding. The very worst offender is Cousin Brucie- listen to his show, which seems to be on Sixties on Six constantly, and you might get half a dozen songs per hour, wedged between his witless banter and idiot callers.

      Delete

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