An Interesting Take On Sirius & XM
Written Aug. 14, 2006 by Sean Ross in Internet Radio with 1 Comment
I usually cringe when I see any article in the consumer press that begins with, "You've had it with the disappearance of musical variety on the radio." But Marc Fisher's Aug. 13 article in the Washington Post, while intended as a consumer's guide to XM vs. Sirius, is a very good, clear-eyed look at the two that stops well short of the outright advocacy that the consumer press is sometimes capable of when it comes to satellite. For one thing, it makes the point, made here a number of times that satellite radio is becoming more mainstream all the time. And for any terrestrial broadcaster who hasn't had a chance to check out every channel of both services lately, it's a pretty good guide to the competition right now.
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Thanks, Sean--I've been surprised at how little attention has been paid to the satellite providers' gradual and continuing shift to an ever-more terrestrial sound, in their choices of channels to add and subtract, in their music selection and in their airsound. That either means that good old terrestrial radio must be doing something right, or that a lack of imagination and risk-taking is somehow contagious. I'd be interested to hear radio professionals talking about why satellite is moving inexorably away from its much-ballyhooed niche experimentation.