Music radio? Is anybody listening anymore?
I read Matt Rosoff's Digital Noise blog all the time, and his recent lamenting radio's irrelevance hit me hard.
I think Matt was mostly referring to AM or FM radio, but what about Internet or satellite radio? Me, I'm still a die hard Sirius subscriber and listen to Left of Center, Sirius Disorder, and Underground Garage channels many hours a day. They turn me onto new music all the time, so I buy an average of two CDs a week.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Of course, now that the hoopla over the Siriius/XM merger has died down and the stock price hovers around fifty cents, it seems like the stockholders don't have that strong a belief in the future of satellite radio. Or maybe they finally realized there are not enough people willing to pay $12.95 a month for commercial-free radio to make Sirius, er, profitable? Gee, I wonder if Howard Stern is the only one to score big bucks in the satellite radio biz? Did he cash out his Sirius stock long ago?
As for AM/FM terrestrial radio music stations, the audience for non-oldies music is too small to support commercial stations anymore. Matt's observation, "But apart from college radio, nobody's playing cutting-edge rock and roll with potentially broad appeal," rings true to me. Too bad.
Hey, MTV gave up on music long ago, let's face it, when the youth market isn't all that interested in music, music's future looks pretty dim. And it's not the big, bad record labels fault, no, music's appeal is fading. Then again, when you're not paying for music, it proves it's not worth anything. No wonder even "free" music on the radio can't hold its own anymore. It's worth less than zero...
Do you listen to music over AM, FM, Sirius, or Internet radio?
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
If i want music in the car, I have a few hundred tunes on the BB and I just plug it into the car stereo.
Won't pay $12.95 per month for radio. That's just plain crazy. That's another $156 a year into my IRA...
not 100% sure but i know when he was brought on to do his own show they gave him a lot of incentives including stock options. which basically means he gets stock for free every year and more stock based on how well his show performs.
well, basically what howard stern did was he took all the stock he got. which was a good amount. and sold it as soon as he got it. something that is looked down upon b/c he should want to hold the stock so if it performs well he would make money. so the bad news was that howard was already pushing down the price by selling off his stock.
anyway, satellite radio is not worth it. i would never pay 13 a month for satellite radio. i listen to internet radio at work and fm in the car to and from work. if i'm at home i would not put on the radio. the only way i would want to get satellite is if i drove tons of miles. like 3-4 hrs a day. or cross-country, etc.
These days my car radio preset 1 is CBC radio, and the rest are the various clear FM bands that give me the best reception on my iPod transmitter. I have 2 AM stations preset for the traffic reports in the two cities I'm most often in.
It might not have gone that way if music DJs weren't more obnoxious than commercials. Those guys are teh suck.
Since gas prices have jumped, I've resorted from my Satellite Radio with Voice Recognition in the Chevy Suburban to an older mini-van that plays cassette tapes.
"Then again, when you're not paying for music, it proves it's not worth anything. No wonder even "free" music on the radio can't hold its own anymore. It's worth less than zero..."
No my friend, the free music on the radio can't hold its own because it is utter crap. And free crap is still just that. The music and interest in it is very much alive it's just that now we (and especially kids) don't have to put up with the way it used to be served. With the plethora of content delivery options, be it sat radio, media player, phone, or internet, the traditional radio is on life support and... good riddance. It wasn't much fun while it lasted, and now it is finally over.
Personally I jumped on the XM bandwagon when it arrived and yes, it costs me ~$200/yr between one in my house and one in the car, but unlike the "free" FM dial, it actually serves the music as opposed to commercials with a few musical interruptions. And never mind the content of those interruptions which as I recall mostly induced vomiting. I can only hope that this musical bliss will last a while longer before they too turn to the same great and "free" business model (which it eventually will I'm sure, especially after that stupid merger).
As for satellite radio offering a viable option, my only experience is the package that I get with my DirecTV and I find those channels to be less than appealing. The ones that play the music I enjoy are filled with yammering "DJ's" that feel the need to fill in the spaces between the music. I am also finding that even satellite radio has playlists. Listening over enough time I find they work out of the same milk crate of CD's. After a while all I hear are the same old selections by the same old bands. The horizons appear to be limited. Just like the land based radio stations around here seem to play quite a few of artist A, where the nearby station looking to gather the same audience plays quite a few of artist B and very little, if any, of artist A, the satellite options limit their programming to similar choices.
However, just like cable TV, I expect that after a while the airwaves will be cluttered with commercial satellite stations. Once "free" channels will start with "sponsors" that will degenerate into commercials, just as the former "American Movie Classics" now AMC did. And we'll have the privilege of paying for it too!
Is it just me?
Every generation bonds to the contemporary music on the radio. But what I see is: for the last generation much of the music has been so poor that it is difficult to bond with it.
Commercial-free satellite radio on subscription is a great idea. I wish I had a car, it'd be in there.
I think when someone comes up with a better quality of music (like the Beatles did) kids will bond and pay for music again.
As for me, I carry my iPhone 3G loaded with "oldies but goodies."
I listen all the time! Between that and NPR stations, I'm set.
Love Pandora, but blocked at work, so I listen to WTMD online, or sub.fm or rinse.fm. (until they block those too, I guess...)
And the sound quality of Sirius and XM are terrible, far worse than even typical FM stations.
But listening to Shoutcast stations on Winamp is amazing. Endless content, always lots of new content, and mp3 sound quality. Stations like Groove Salad, Radio Nigel, Morow, Club 977, SKY FM, SmoothJazz, are all simply wonderful. And you can do alot by supporting these stations with a couple of bucks per month.
If you haven't experienced Shoutcast stations on Winamp, give it a whirl. Start somewhere at about $60 and up for a set of 2.1 speakers or about $85 and up for 5.1 speakers.... you will be amazed.
I do have a sirius radio, and I love it ... but I can't see it being viable.
To my knowledge the Canadian Sirius (which is seperate from SiriusXM and XM Canada) is the only sat. radio company that is currently in the black ... but that means nothing if siriusxm goes broke.
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by betomiller
October 8, 2008 2:54 PM PDT
- I listen to Internet Radio every time I need to center myself and distance from the constant barrage of advertising on commercial radio. XM doesn't interest me.
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