On August 5th 2005 my world came to a crushing halt. I was on my way to work listening to my Sirius satellite radio (you know uncensored, commercial free, so worth the $10 a month). I was listening to the Alt Nation channel, Greenday was on American Idiot was the song. I was thrown back when I heard the lyrics being censored. My initial thought was, this station never censors music. Does it? But there played the lyrics to the song:

"Don't wanna be an American idiot. Don't want a nation under the new mania. And can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind____ America."

And then

"Well maybe I'm the ______ America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.

WTF, the "uncensored music" was being censored!
Then I immediately got pissed since I pay for uncensored music.

Initially I thought it was a mistake. There are some censored stations on Sirius but those are just the ones for religious right and children. Not me I pay for the 5 or 6 uncensored channels and this is one of them. I kept listening to reassure myself that song was a fluke, but after an hour found 2 more songs edited.

I called Sirius and was told a line about Sprint striking a deal with Sirius for sponsorship and having to edit the content on some channels. My question to them was did this affect all the channels on Sirius? They told me to go to the press release section of their website to get more details. I still can't find one release on this subject.

My real fear is Howard Stern coming over to Sirius to find that the format has changed and Censorship is Turned_On. I don't think that would fly with his methodology for radio. He is already fighting that battle on the public air waves and reaches a much larger audience then he will on Sirius. I have a feeling that the listeners are going to suffer because of this Sprint deal with Sirius. I guess it was a matter of time before some corporate or government entity would take control of this little pup.
What got me excited about Sirius in the first place was the freedom they had over content. Coming from a college radio background where play lists and advertising was not standard radio format I was quickly on board with Satellite radio. Now feel this is the beginning of the end for Sirius if Censorship_off goes what makes them any different from XM or commercial radio. You would be blind to think Commercials_off is next to go.

I know freedom of speech is not free but it's ironic that even if your willing to pay a price for freedom of speech you still can't get it.

I think August 5th 2005 was a sad day for Sirius.