I enjoyed the Versus Television Coverage of the Kentucky Derby weekend and look forward to it again for their Preakness coverage. In addition to the coverage of the Black Eyed Susan on Friday and Undercard coverage on Saturday-remember after the NBC Coverage there is a 30 minute wrap up show on Versus from 6:30-7:00 pm.
On the radio side very disappointed to learn of the changes (cuts) on SiriusXM Satellite radio's horse racing coverage. Steve Byk's At the Races show was broadcast live from 9 am -12pm weekdays on Sirius Channel 93 (and Channel 210 On XM). When Steve signs off the channel picks up the audio feed of TVG. I make my living on the road driving from appointment to appointment with ample windshield time. When I am driving, I can't be looking at a computer, Smartphone or TV, so listening to Steve Byk on Satellite radio and his many regular guests (Steve Haskin, Gary West, Steve Davidowitz among others) and hearing the audio of TVG was a godsend.
However this week SiriusXM made a programming change, broadcasting only 1 hour of Byk's show (from 8-9am) and no TVG coverage at Noon. Instead at 9 am SiriusXM listeners tuning to the channel now hear sports talk from 3 ESPN owned radio programs- ESPN Chicago’s Waddle and Silvy, ESPN New York’s Mike Lupica Show and Michael Kay Show.
WTF....instead of hearing something I can't hear on regular radio, I now lose racing coverage for simulcasts of general sports talk shows that can be heard on regular AM radio. No word yet if SiriusXM will find another station for Steve Byk's show and TVG coverage. Of course, SiriusXM Executives felt that the middle of Triple Crown season would be the perfect time to cut racing coverage and replace Byk and TVG.
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Saratoga Spa, I'm with you on this one and will be calling Sirius tomorrow to inquire, and perhaps cancel my subscription, which I get primarily to listen to Byk and TVG while on the road. I don't need to hear Michael Kay, when I can tune into ESPN on terrestrial radio. Bad move by Sirius.
Let these executives know how you feel about these unwelcome changes
steve.cohen@siriusxm.com
scott.greenstein@siriusxm.com mel.karmazin@siriusxm.com matt.deutsch@siriusxm.com
I'm still getting Byk and TVG on XM209.
What truly annoys me though is on the weekends instead of TVG they switch to a droning schedule announcement.
Update: As of this morning (5/19), after 9 am Byk/TVG still off Sirius 93.
The Byk show is also playing on Channel 860 but this channel is only available online or on the SiriusXM Smartphone App. If you are a Sirius Subscriber & want to listen on the radio you are still out of luck.
Ljk: I have recieved confirmation from Steve Cohen at SiriusXM that Byk and TVG will remain on XM. Byk's show will be broadcast live weekdays on the App/online on Channel 860 (sportszone) but it is still off Sirius 93 (first hour broadcast only). Also the TVG afternoon progamming is no longer heard on Sirius 93 or on the App.
In order to use the smartphone Sirius app, you have to pay $3/mos for Sirius internet radio, but it works well. You can also listen to Steve's show for free via stream, podcast, or the broadcast archive at stevebyk.com. Steve is pretty much all I listen to, so I just cancelled our second radio subscription and added the internet radio to the primary account. I made sure to speak w/ a supervisor and sent an email expressing my disappointment. Hopefully, Sirius will figure out how loyal Steve's fans are. 'At the Races' has the most comprehensive coverage out there for horse racing fans.
I have communicated numerous times with TVG and Sirius XM and was told several times it is a bandwidth issue to find the space for horse racing. Even though you hear the sports schedule loop on multiple channels, that only takes up one channel worth of bandwidth for them, so when there are other sports (baseball, etc.), they need to bump TVG. They finally dropped it all together this summer, and it was unreliable, which is why I cancelled my subscription. Definitely e-mail the SiriusXM executives listed above and tell them you want 24/7 TVG coverage, plus Steve Byk and the others.
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