One day I wandered into The Forum Mall and listened to Worldspace. They were playing a Haridas bhajan which was one of my favourites. Immediately decided to pick it up. My parents enjoyed having Shruthi for company. Especially my mother, who is an avid carnatic music rasika. Though I had mostly listened to only Shruthi, I would occasionally listen to other channels as well. KL Radio had some fantastic programmes on Saturdays and Sundays.
We got back from vacation and figured Worldspace was not working. On reading the news and talking to a few people, we got to know that the India Operations is shutdown for good. It has been almost a week now and the house is so quiet, having a haunted feel. Hope a miracle happens and Shruthi is heard again in our home entertaining, educating and soothing me with its collection of carnatic music.
It gave me company for almost 3 years.
It helped me listen to some good quality music.
It helped me in learning and identifying Raagas.
It brought me some good interviews with stalwarts,
It helped me in staying away from the idiot box.
It was good while it lasted.
Bye Bye Worldspace.
Oops,
I saw both best and worst sides of Worldspace,
It certainly helped in improving my understanding of classical music.
Some times I felt it was too monopolistic when it comes to service or pricing.
However lets hope some one else will pick it up and take it forward for good.
Just discovered that Afristar is giving some free to air channels. Need to try it out. However looks like it might also get shutdown end of this month.
To me worldspace was a mixed bag. In terms of customer support, they sucked. My receiver conked and they refused to replace it. They insisted that I must get a new connection in order to get a new receiver - which is obviously very ridiculous. So I didn't miss the demise of World space.
I liked KL radio. I hated Riff (jazz) which kept playing some crap jazz instead of classics. Most of the time, it was only occasionally that they'd play good ones on most of the channels I cared about (KL, Shruti, Riff) and there were always repetitions.
Diametrically opposite to your opinion, I'm glad WS is dead ;)