Anybody buying a worldspace receiver should brace himself for great disappointments. I bought mine and activated it but hollaz! Their packages come in only 6-month and 1 year bouquets. Their website cheats you that you pay 9 dollars per month but you will be forced to pay 60 dollars for a 6 month subscription period, or one of 120 dollars for a year! Now who is willing to pay all that money just to listen to radio?
Though they dont have adverts, their music is so repetitive it is boring! Potion, Voyager, Riff, Pop Maestro, WorlZone etc. and all those music channels seem to have mp3s of about 200 songs only and you keep listening to the same stuff.
I bought my JVC receiver for 550 U.S dollars but now I have been forced to lock it up in my house since the company that sold it to me cannot take it back, and I cannot pay for a yearly subscription when in the real sense I only have an hour of Radio daily, except the month I am on leave, or a weekend!
If you are a prospective buyer, ask yourself these questions:
Do you have a clear reception of FM station that plays your favourite music? If the answer is in the affirmative then forget Worldspace. I live in Nairobi and I think I am getting whatever music I need, Free!
Do you have time for radio? If you spent time working in the office working and only come home late then this item is not worth investing in.
However, if you have too much time for yourself, and some money to spare, then go for it! It might just remove you from your boredom!
Will I need extra costs? The most annoying thing is that it doesnt matter what receiver you have. If you have the smallest or tha largest of them all, you all pay the same for receiving the signal, yet the small ones are not that much digital! For these small ones, you need an amplifier thus pushing costs much higher!
Will I only Listen to what I want or will I be forced to pay for a baggage I dont want? Worldspace does not allow you to choose what to listen to. You are forced to pay fo a whole lot of 40 channels, most of which you have nothing to do with. For example, if you only wanted music, you will be forced to also pay for News, religious material and talk radio! If you are a christian, you will be forced to take on board Channel Islam, etc!
It would have been good to let listeners choose what they want to listen to. They should come up with something like pay per channel, (Divide what they are currently charging then get how much a channel costs) which will push prices lower and more peolple will buy the radios, knowing that they will listen only to what they want at low costs. This will also Let the Worldspace Corporation asses what programmes are bringing in money thus do away with those that are a liability!
- Lastly, worldspace keeps removing some programmes from their menu. For Instance, Stations like: Kaya FM, Jacaranda, Kiss FM, KBC and Killamusica were removed without even an explanation! This arrogance will not endear them at all to listeners.
There you go! At least you know what you want!
P.S. (However, Am told Indians have a very good deal of a few rupees per year! If you are in India, Go for it if you feel you can afford it!!)
Wakilongo,
Nairobi,
Kenya.