In article ,
D Peter Maus wrote:
I don't think BBC owns a piece of XM. And when XM and Sirius
launched, World Service streams were split to an all news and
information stream on Sirius, and the 'Rich Mix' that we all enjoyed, on
XM.

When shortwave broadcasts ended, the "Rich Mix" feature and
entertainment programs were moved to another BBC channel, and the web,
and both Sirius and XM became, for the most part, only news. Again, to
more desirable 'decision makers and opinion formers.'

I was using the XM schedules for what little I could get off the
shortwave for North Am., and it's been the Americas schedule, including
the Caribbean stuff, at least until the last season change, (when it
wasn't worth downloading it).

The real irritant is the castrated PRI schedule which allocates only 1/2
hour a day for a limited selection of the 1 1/2 hours of documentaries/
science/culture per day programming. And those blocks are repeated three
times, so there's 4 more hours of rerun news on your local FM compared
to the shortwave feeds.

Anyone who still believes that BBC is an impartial news source, needs
to rethink that position.

Yea, the "Free Market Fundamentalists" in the business unit give
me a pain. And they'll never directly say anything that puts their
paymasters in the Foreign Office in a bad light. And they're way too
prone to go to the think tank arms of the Republican Machine when the
they need a pugnacious propagandist to balance out somebody who lives
in the real world.

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)