Special X

Infobox Radio Station
name = Special X


area = Off-air
branding = Special X
slogan =
airdate = 2001
frequency = XM154 (online)
DTV 848
format = Weirdness
class =
owner = XM Satellite Radio
callsign_meaning =

Special X was a channel on XM Satellite Radio Channel 30 that played random music with a "weirdness" theme. The channel was hosted by a character named Generalissimo Stacio Ortega, a creation of station programmer Lou Brutus. Some of its featured content included "Parrot Training Records," "Wax My Woody" (surf music), "Polka Party," "Wabbit Trax" (cartoon music), along with syndicated content such as Dr. Demento. During certain holidays such as St. Patrick's Day and Halloween, Special X would change its programming to feature related music. The channel would temporarily change its name to "Special X-mas" during the Christmas season and play nonstop offbeat holiday music and programming, from songs like "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" to shorts like "A Very (Charlton) Heston Christmas".

In January 2004 at the CES show, XM announced that four channels would be eliminated to make way for new programming. To the surprise of many, Special X was announced as a discontinued channel that would end programming on February 1st. During the final few weeks of broadcast, station host Generalissimo Stacio Ortega was featured in vignettes that satired the decision to discontinue the station by the "figureheads" and made reference to the message board campaigns that fans were raising to convince XM not to eliminate Special X.

On the final night of air, a six-hour special was played featuring a compilation of the best of programming from Special X. In-between songs, The Generalissimo would update listeners on the war involving his final stand against the "enemy" who was trying to yank him from the air. The "enemy" made their way into the bunker and Generalissimo was finally killed in Tony Montana fashion, only to wake up and realizing it was all a dream (now parodying "The Wizard of Oz".) The final segment involved the Generalissimo promising that the "army of weirdness" would rise again. Following the conclusion, Special X left the air and was replaced with The Blend on XM 25. Program Director Lou Brutus would go on to program for Fungus on XM 53, one of the new stations announced at CES.

Following the demise of Special X, some of its featured content was moved to other channels. "Wax My Woody" was moved to 60s on 6 while Dr. Demento was moved to Deep Tracks. "Special X-mas" continued on as its own channel only to appear annually in the XM lineup during the Christmas season as it did when Special X was broadcasted.

Later that year, Special X would return as an online-exclusive channel to XM's new online streaming service. However, the channel lacked the hosts and special programming that it had during its satellite days and only plays its music and programming on auto-pilot. On 2006-04-17, Special X moved from XMRO 30 to XMRO 154 in order to make room for XM Hitlist. It is now online on XMRO 154 and on DirecTV Channel 848.

In mid-July 2008, all XM online-only channels were removed, and Special X was included in this purging. Here is an email received from Jon Zellner in response to an inquiry about the removal of Special X:

"Thank you for taking the time to contact us about the removal of Special X from the XM Radio online service. As you may remember, Special X and several other channels had been available on our satellite service until a couple years ago. The decision was made to remove all of XM's online-only music channels to make room for other channels including Radio Disney, BBC World Service, CNN, C-Span Radio, FOX News Talk, ESPN Radio, NHL Home Ice, PGA TOUR Network, and XM Sports Nation. We have a limited amount of space on the online platform and one of the biggest inquiries we get is why the online service is missing many of the well-known news and talk brands we offer on the satellite service. Now, the two platforms will be more consistent."

"We recognize that there is a loyal audience for the kind of music heard on Special X . Unfortunately, listenership on the channel was consistently low. We will, however, monitor at subscriber feedback carefully and will consider bringing the channel back at some point when we update our channel line-up later this year."

ee also

XM Satellite Radio channel history