Satellite Radio's Mixed Bag
Satellite radio's a lot like the typical teenage kid. It's still a little immature - and while there's lots of potential (and even much to like) there's also a whole lot of stuff that's still "work-in-progress."Consider a few points:
* You pay to hear commercials - One of the early appeals of satellite radio was the prospect of escaping the endless barrage of annoying commercials on FM and AM radio. You paid XM or Sirius a monthly fee, which (ostensibly) took the place of commercial ad revenue on "free" radio, allowing the satellite station to provide content only - and no (or very little) commercial garbage. At first, when satellite radio was still pretty new, this was generally true. There were commercial-free (and "limited commercial") channels. But anyone who listened to satellite in its early days - and who still listens to it now - knows that "ad creep" has caught up to it. Commercials are almost as omni-present (and just as annoying) on satellite radio as they are on "free" radio. There are multi-minute blocks of them on some of the channels - as bad or worse as on FM. The difference is you are paying to hear them now. Satellite radio could probably gain more listeners (and get back those who left in disgust) by living up to the commercial -free promise - even if it meant higher monthly subscription fees. Who wouldn't pay an extra $5 or $10 per month to lose the bleating, braying juggernaut of peddlers?
* The reception can be spotty - On the one hand, you can listen to the same station on satellite radio on a coast-to-coast drive from New York to LA. That's the good news. The bad news is that there are often frequent gaps in coverage -- the station just goes dark as it "searches for signal" - when you're in the mountains, or there are tree canopies overhead. Very much like iffy cell phone coverage in "dead zones." These gaps can last as long as several minutes at a time. And they usually happen right in the middle of something you really wanted to hear - a favorite song, maybe. Or Howard Stern ranting. It's super annoying. Especially since you are paying for the product - and aren't receiving it. The fix (well, a fix) seems technically doable. Why not use a small hard drive to store programming as it's being transmitted - and transmit on a 60 second or 90 second (or whatever) delay, so that even if you hit a dead zone, the time-released broadcast continues your programming without interruption? For people who live in mountainous areas, where such interruptions are a daily part of the drive, this is a make it or break it deal.
* Too many channels, not enough on - It's just like cable TV. We have to wade through more than a hundred channels -- half of them dreck - to find the handful of stations we're interested in listening to. The system forces you, in many cases, to scroll endlessly up and down the dial - and unless you've memorized the hundred-plus channels, you have to wait a moment or three until the readout tells you what's on station 87 (or whatever) so you can decide to stay - or move on. And the packaging is terrible, regardless. Why is it not possible to buy access to the specific channels you'd like to get -and ditch the rest? For example, some people have zero interest in pro sports. Yet one has to wade through dozens of permutations of ESPN to find the talk radio channels. Sports fans may feel the same about talk radio - and want all sports, all the time. Shouldn't we be able to get what we want - and be able to avoid what we don't? After all, we're paying for the content here. Why should we tolerate being force-fed a smorgasbord of stuff we aren't the least bit interested in?
These things need to be looked into and dealt with before the merger of XM and Sirius is dealt with. Making satellite radio bigger doesn't necessarily mean it'll be better.
As with that sixteen-year-old kid, the future's uncertain. The kid might go to Harvard - or be manning the drive-thru window at Taco Bell. As for satellite radio, it may live up to its promise of delivering us from endless commercial assault - providing the content we're paying to listen to (and none we're not).
Or it might end up like the kid at the drive-thru - all wasted potential.
