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Satellite radio has created a new frontier for music lovers
from: Herald.com
By Evelyn McDonnell
Janie 'could just dance to that rock 'n' roll station" in the Velvet Underground's Rock & Roll. Modern Lovers' Roadrunner drove past the Stop & Shop "with the radio on." Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio?, The Ramones asked.
Remember, indeed. For at least a decade, and arguably for three, music and radio have been antonyms in most parts of the United States. If you love music, really love music, the AM and FM dials are the last places you go to hear it. There are too many commercials, too few songs; those songs get played over and over until they morph into viruses. The narrowing of playlists and consolidation of station ownership were two of the main causes for the decline of the music industry this century. Radio wasn't creating and nurturing music fans; it was killing them off.
Then along came satellite.
Satellite radio has created a new frontier for music listening. Along with Internet radio and the iPod, the format is helping turn the moribund record industry around by creating new, diverse outlets for, and thereby stimulating, musical production. Along with Internet companies like myspace.com and friendster, satellite radio is solidifying the new cultural and consumer paradigm of social networking, wherein communities are defined not by geographic centers but by tastes and interests.
At a given moment on XM Radio's 152 channels (67 of them music), you could hear, say, an old-school hip-hop jam by Toronto's Dream Warriors, LCD Soundsystem's current delirious dance-rock hit Daft Punk Is Playing at My House, George Strait's first single, or Queen Latifah.
On Sirius's 120 channels (65 music), guest programmer JOAN JETT might play the Ramones and the Donnas on Underground Garage, or you can mellow out to Little Louie Vega on Chill or remember home with some Celia Cruz on Tropical. Or 24/7, you can hear the King on the exclusive Sirius channel, Elvis Radio.
In fact, if you can't find something you like on the two satellite radio networks, maybe you're not a music lover after all.
NO COMMERCIALS
And it's doing this all with no commercials. No annoying announcers trying to sell you something you don't need or want. Just lots of music, a little bit of talk, then more music.
"Records should be a mass broadcast medium, but they needn't necessarily be," Elvis Costello said in a recent interview. ``As we know there are new systems coming up all the time that are going to go completely around the record shop and the radio station. The radio station doesn't exist anymore because you have satellite radio."
I've spent a couple months driving around with XM in my car, then listening to Sirius at home. I've rediscovered old friends (Newcleus) and made some new ones (Madeleine Peyroux). This is radio that provides the thrill of the now, like top 40 once did; that provides a dedicated, high-quality audio experience, as FM used to; that challenges with the new, as college radio can, when it's not trying too hard to be difficult.
Sure it costs: $12.95 a month. That's a price I'm willing to pay to never hear a fast-food jingle again (I try not to watch TV).
Satellite radio is to terrestrial radio as cable TV is to broadcast. Plus, no commercials.
A QUICK PRIMER
XM and Sirius beam their programming from satellites. You need a special antenna for your home or car (both antennaes are small). Making sure the home antenna is properly placed for decent reception and wiring the car antenna through your auto's body are the most difficult parts of setting the systems up. Both companies offer inexpensive devices that connect directly to existing home and car stereos; XM also offers a device you can carry with you and a boombox. The duopoly are in hot competition to land deals with carmakers to have their equipment factory-loaded into new vehicles.
For musicheads, XM is the superior product. The company's choices are more unorthodox, its musical knowledge deep. Even the channel names show XM's folks are out-of-the-box creative thinkers, not literal-minded strategists with expanded playlists. XM calls their alternative rock stations Lucy, Fred and Ethel (hee-hee); Sirius calls theirs First Wave, Left of Center and Alt Nation (yawn).
"A lot of channels come to fruition when we're sitting around a room with a lot of white boards and four to five 12-packs of Dr Pepper, a bunch of Snickers and cake," says XM's executive vice president of programming, Eric Logan. ``We get a big sugar rush and go, `What's not been done before?'
``The overall philosophy for our music presentation is about exposing and discovery and the celebration of music. That really is the most important part of what we do."
Where XM lets the music be its muse, Sirius turns to personalities. Extreme sports stars host shows on the rap and rock Faction; hip-hop legends Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and DJ Kool Herc have gigs on the four hip-hop channels. Eminem has his own channel; E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt has two. And of course next year, Howard Stern will join the Sirius gang.
"The majority of our music channels are hosted by air personalities all day long who present this music to you in a way that drives passion," says Steve Blatter, senior vice president of music programming for Sirius. ``It's not just a music jukebox. It's a full package."
'BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS'
Like the click-cliques of Friendster, the downside of satellite's niche programming is it creates orthodoxy; you can get stuck in one channel, one taste group. "There are basic listener behavior problems," Logan admits.
Whereas channel to channel, XM is more adventurous, some specific Sirius channels take genre-mix risks that challenge listener complacency. Faction juggles rap and rock; Underground Garage mixes vintage and contemporary acts.
"Because we're commercial free, we don't have to cater to an advertising base," Blatter says. ``All we are concerned about is providing our subscribers with a supremely satisfying music-listening experience. Many alternative stations are concerned if they play hip-hop that advertisers would abandon them, because hip-hop tends to skew the stations to an audience younger than local advertisers are willing to spend money on. Because we're totally commercial free, our music channels can be far more innovative."
CONSUMER COUNTS
For years, radio programmers have defended their musical choices as dictated by the needs of advertisers. Satellite radio is all about satisfying the consumer. Logan says XM loses only 1 percent of their subscribers a year, a startlingly high measure of customer satisfaction. Both formats are adding subscribers at rates that make the medium one of the fastest-growing technologies ever. XM has more than 3.77 million subscribers, Sirius 1.24 million.
Satellite radio is also undermining the hegemony of a music industry that had been overtaken by a "hits" mentality.
"We're taking some of these smaller, lesser known musical entities or niches and exposing them on a national level," Logan says. "This has started a musical revolution. . . . When you have a national platform and you're able to showcase channels devoted purely to love songs, or music from [a specific decade], . . . it really becomes an opportunity to celebrate the music. Our playlists are deep and broad by design so that our subscribers can experience something they've never experienced before."
And that's good news for music.
"If you look at the records that don't make the big numbers and aggregate them, it's a bigger market than the few things that become hits," says David Prince, founder of the Miami Music and Multimedia summit. ``The way the music industry is going, being true to yourself as an artist, working with music you really like that goes to specialized audiences, is going to become an asset and not something to be overcome. It goes hand in hand with social networking. It's about finding like-minded communities that are based around music. That now can happen on an international level -- it doesn't matter where you are physically. It's uncharted territory."
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