I don’t currently subscribe to either XM or Sirius satellite radio. But there have been times I would have sold my mother to the Arabs, (to quote Woody Allen), for anything that offered relief from the unmitigated crap that qualifies as “local broadcasting” across huge swaths of the continental USA. I mean, westbound out of Minnesota you can get maybe as far as Pierre S.D. before the “charm” of the voices of colloquial America have you pounding your head on the steering wheel.
One big reason is that “local broadcasting” in the heavily-consolidated, Clear Channel-take all, post-TeleCom Act of 1996 age means there are very few actual locals on “local radio”. Instead you get a hell of a lot of Rush Limbaugh, regional Rush Limbaugh-wannabes and syndicated Christian/bigot preachers inveighing against homosexuals and the U.N. All that and soulless, whitebread “radio-country” crap. (Would it kill these alleged country stations to play Hank Williams and Lucinda Williams? The Drive By Truckers? Come on!)
The long-predicted announcement that XM and Sirius are planning to merge gives Congress an opportunity to right a few of the big time wrongs that followed the TeleCom ’96 Act. As Cong. Ed Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday, “In light of the dramatic consolidation of radio ownership in the U.S. terrestial radio marketplace in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, I believe the merger of the only two satellite radio companies must be assessed with an eye toward ensuring that it does not have a similar deleterious effect on diversity on the dial and localism in radio coverage and reporting.”
“Deleterious effect” Well, amen to that, Congressman. Markey is probably just blowing brave smoke, but he seems to understand the bland, monopolized and, I dare say, politicized mess that 11 years of unchecked consolidation has brought. More to the point, what with the new, Democratic-controlled Congress having oversight over approval of this proposed merger, it is possible to re-think 21st century radio.
The trick, it seems to me is creating a legal template that assures true(r) diversity — not just different call letters for programming that all comes out of some New York or San Antonio studio. The best way, it seems to me is by finding a way to keep satellite subscriptions low-to-non-existent, and using that competition to force stagnated, ad-choked terrestial radio to clean up its act.
One proposal worth exploring seriously is a la carte programming. As in, let me pick 20 satellite channels for a buck, or 50 for $5, or something like that, instead of insisting on $13 for everything, and see what happens. Like many of you, I’m maxed out on monthly subscription fees. But ask yourself, wouldn’t you pop for satellite radio if it only cost you the price of a couple espressos a month?
The other is squeezing local stations onto the one big satellite system. Don’t get me started on the way Congress and the FCC never get tough with terrestial broadcasters — WHO PAY NO MONEY, EVER, FOR THEIR LICENSES. I think it’d being amusing to watch {the parent companies) of big local stations, like, say, WCCO, KSTP or KFAN, bidding for a priority spot on a satellite, if each Top 50 metro area was only going to get one, or two. (Clear Channel of course owns a fat chunk of XM).
Since terrestial broadcasters haven’t paid Dime One for the right to print money from the public airwaves, maybe they could pay cash straight to the government kitty for spots on a bird — required of XM/Sirius as a condition of approval.
I haven’t bought into satellite to this point because, A: I’m a cheap bastard. B: It hasn’t been portable enough, yet. (but its getting there.) C: I’ve got hundreds of CDs that’ll get me from here to there just fine, and without 30 minutes of commercials every hour, and finally, D: Some of the best hours of road-tripping I’ve ever enjoyed came with a serenade no more expensive than a sunroof open to the whistling wind.
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