I heard some of it. It was A-O-K. Though Fred is a little too Cure and Smiths heavy for me. I like my suicidal thought retail, not wholesale.
Lately, I’ve been listening to 80s on 8 because they’ve been running all of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 broadcasts from the 80s. Great fun.
And I had a blast when the decade channels (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s for the uninitiated) ran the MONSTER! Ever #1 song in order starting in the 40s and running all the way throught the 90s. That was brilliant.
I pity the poor fools who suffer through FM (read that: Clearchannel) music radio. How do they survive?
In 1946, Charles A. Siepmann published a book, Radio’s Second Chance, about the bright future of FM radio. FM’s “golden age” was the 1960s, when it was known for its innovative “free form” formats. But once it became profitable, it largely lapsed into duplication of the uninspired programming that had been on the AM (mediumwave) band. The question is whether satellite will suffer the same fate. One of the investors in the XM Satellite service is Clear Channel Communications. That has led to speculation that someday you will turn on your XM receiver and hear dozens of Clear Channel’s local stations being rebroadcast on the XM frequencies.
Today I found out that the station in question is indeed run by Clear Channel.
This could result in one of two things: because it is subject to the whim of the Company, it could remain part of Fargo’s rock stations for all time because the parent company can afford to do that, or they could just switch it to soft rock or something depending on what the number one song on TRL is. Whatever the case, the latter possibility will happen suddenly–perhaps over the span of a single commercial break.
Oh well.
Don’t you just hate it when something like 7 stations all can have a commercial break at the same time? I say 7 because that’s all that my car has buttons for.
So basically XM Radio is one company (and one with a reputation, at that) deciding your listening options, only with a bit more room to play with? And I can’t use their $300 receiver to pick up any other company’s satellite radio broadcasts?
I’m willing to wait a few years to see how this plays out, before running to them with a big check. But thanks.
I’ve also heard it claimed that there’s a station somewhere with KLIT that plays soft rock and pronounces it K-LITE. Of course, I’ve also heard that KLIT are the call letters for the Lubbock airport (from a student pilot I know). I have no idea if any of those are true, just what I’ve heard.
XM is mostly owned by Hughes and GM. Clearchannel has a stake of (off the top of my head…no cite) about 10%.
But it does give you 100 different options. Far more than any single market can give you. If you don’t like their classic rock channel you can head to ANOTHER classic rock channel. That’s the joy of it.
It’s going to come down to XM vs Sirius for Satellite Radio Supremacy. And my money’s on XM. With GM on board they’re going to be appearing in a car you but sometime in the next 10 years.
I’m telling you…we’re seeing an entire industry change. And it’s just the parallel to what happened when cable television got into the marketplace. The networks began declining in fairly short order.
And God knows…the lack of perky DJs spewing pap on a lot of stations is a big plus.
Actually, what I want is radio with an active deejay role: someone who’ll take the time to think, “If my listeners like A, B, and C, they might also like D, which they haven’t heard,” and then play song D to see what reaction it gets. That’s what a deejay can do well. Plus, XM won’t tell me what the backup on Route 4 looks like in the morning.
Also, with XM or Sirius or whatever, I’m expected to put up a lot of money upfront, with no real idea of what I’m buying, or how it might change in a year. Once satellite radio receivers are compatible and drop under $100, I may think about subscribing to one or the other.
So I’ll keep listening to my usual mix, which includes a lot of indie station WRNR (Annapolis), whose deejays play what they want to play, and a bit of Star 89.3, a southern Maryland 70s-80s station I recently discovered that gives southern Maryland news and traffic. My radio options aren’t totally homogenized yet, amazingly enough.
Each XM station has a Program Director who’s completely in charge of the playlist for his channel. Lou Brutus, late of WHFS is one of them. Providing they stick to playing the format they were hired for it becomes a pretty electric mix.
You’re right about the traffic thing, though. There’s no way of doing that yet.
Of course, since you say they’re gonna win anyway, why shouldn’t I wait until they do, before I buy?
Since WRNR, which I’ve mentioned here, is largely staffed by refugees from the old WHFS, that scores some points with me.
Do the program directors have room to take occasional chances, or are they straitjacketed into playing songs with already-proven appeal, as measured by focus groups twiddling knobs?
Well, I want to make SURE XM survives, myself. But I’m in love and not responsible for my actions.
I admit, I wish I could get RNR out in the mountains. When they were 250 watts in Bethesda while I was a teen they were the star in the east.
The PDs DO stick within their genre, the Bluegrass station won’t play Black Sabbath and the 80s channel won’t play Britney Spears. Other than that I haven’t found anything they won’t play.
Hmm. Only some channels will play foul language…but they’re clearly marked on the program guide for your listening pleasure.
