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Satellite vs Memphis Radio

N

NinjaBoot

Guest
Is it just me, or does Satellite have the ENTIRE country at it's disposal for DJ talent, and all they can produce are the people that air on thier channels? I swear most of them are there just because they are excited that they can drop and 'f-bomb'.
The sad part about satelitte radio: Their playlists are tighter than FM radio, add the fact that they specify music per channel (Punk, Metal, Island, Elvis, Grunge, etc) Not only is it a limited playlist, it's a limited playlist limited to a specific genre.
I may listen to Satellite radio while in the office (just for the shear fact that my father is a year-long subscriber so I use his account via the computer) but when I get into a vehicle, it's back to good ol' radio.
I did the 'listen to Stern' thing for a couple weeks, but that got old, then I switched to the music channels, but inbetween hearing the same 30songs and the un entertaining jocks that occasionally pepper the channels, its getting old.
With Memphis radio, I may hear the same songs over and over, but at least some of jocks on air are something to look forward to.
Plus, I'd love to see a satellite channel try to get the same heritage as a channel like FM100.

The soapbox is now open to any takers.
 
I agree with your air staff point…you would think satellite radio would have the cream of the crop, and the decades channels would have some of the legendary jocks from the respective decades. I have XM, and the 60s channel does a pretty good job of creating the 60s sound and has some pretty good jocks, but the 70s, 80s, and 90s don’t even make the effort. The 70s has some TM 70s style jingles, but with the exception of Bobby Ocean of KHJ fame (who is pretty flat and obviously voice tracked), the staff is pretty bland if there’s even anyone on at all. Same with the 80s and 90s.

That said, a few of the specialty channels have some pretty good air talent. The guys on XM Deep Tracks sound exactly like the AOR jocks of the 70s…very good pipes, but slightly stoned…
 
(Original post replaced by poster realizing anything he says may be taken as "sour grapes")
 
I'm an XM guy over Sirius for one reason only. I listen to radio mostly for music. I get XM for the music. On Sirius, if they play a Rolling Stones song, it's Jumpin Jack Flash for the 7,437,311th time. Who needs it. On XM, I'll hear a track from their first album or maybe even a song I'm unfamiliar with...........the "Oh Wow" factor we all remember and love and which is hard to find.

I"m not overwhelmed by the air talent. There certainly doesn't seem to be any "legendary" voices on some channels.......but I'm not underwhelmed either.

I listen for the music and my taste are best served by XM....over Sirius and certainly terrestial radio.

Plus no or very few commercials is a plus............and never losing the signal from coast to coast is mind blowing.

I do prefer local sports shows because.......it's about local sports which is a big interest of mine. And I do listen to local radio if there is a local crisis going on.
 
I have XM and listen mostly at work.

and mostly to Watercolors & Chill

Your not going to run into an XM jock at the store or the mall. They are going to send you to the new coolest bar or resturant. Their appeal has to be very broad and its 1000 times harder to connect to the audience the way heritage jocks on a heritage station do.
 
One of my close friends has satellite (not sure which provider), but I've been in her car a few times and have heard the quality of the jocks and they were not all that great, I mean for a device that's suppose to lure people from radio to its services, I didn't see much change. The announcers are flat, I noticed ads, and I heard no localism. The only advantages that were noticeable to me was the fact that you can drive and not lose signal (which I heard they do actually drop out at certain points, but obviously better than terrestrial radio) and the large array of channels..You ask about heritage from a satellite channel?? I seriously doubt it..It would be hard for me to faithful to something a subscribe to, how many cable channels have heritage vs. your local tv affiliates?
 
Michael said:
I have XM and listen mostly at work.

and mostly to Watercolors & Chill

Your not going to run into an XM jock at the store or the mall. They aren't going to send you to the new coolest bar or resturant. Their appeal has to be very broad and its 1000 times harder to connect to the audience the way heritage jocks on a heritage station do.
Click to expand...

fixed a typo... i hate you can't edit your posts
 
Heritage means nothing in the modern radio landscape. Sorry, but it's true.

Ninja, part of your problem is that you're listening to Sirius, which has a much more FM-like repetitive playlist thing going on with a lot of the channels, along with more yammering DJs. XM's playlists are much deeper overall, and there's fewer voices (the 60's channel that radiosaur speaks of is one big exception)... Unfortunately I think the repetitiveness of Sirius is what has helped them get such big subscriber gains -- it's just like FM with fewer interruptions. Blah.

Personally, the DJs aren't all that interesting on XM, with whom I have the most experience... But then there aren't any interesting jocks to listen to here in Grenada (MS), and there were only a few worth hearing back in B'ham... So far I haven't heard anyone in Memphis that impressed me a lot - but then the only time I hear music is at a store, and it's usually FM 100 at a TCBY, LOL. Remember each service has what... 6+ million subscribers? Per channel, there are fewer listeners than most big market radio stations, I'm sure. Not exactly the pull for big talent. Plus these people are spending all this big money on Oprah and Hoo Hoo and baseball and football instead of channel talent, because those big names are much bigger draws than channel DJ's.

...and while a lot of people still are alarmed at people dropping the 'f-bomb' remember it's just a word. It's actually nice to hear some rock and rap, uncensored, as it should be. And ol' Stern is gonna use the freedom to say what he wants now; he's probably speaking more like people do in real life than what's allowed on free radio. As much as I don't care for him, he made the right move. Terrestrial radio is getting tighter and tighter on what can be said and done... One only need to listen to Opie & Anthony's "Free FM" show compared to their "Worst of" clips from the WNEW days to see how much less they can get away with... It's pathetic.
 
I work in an office where just about everyone has satellite radio because of the unique programming offered. I can say that all these people rarely listen to terrestrial radio.

I have found that terrestrial radio is just corporate radio. The competition for listeners is not there and I think listeners are at the mercy of what someone likes in the corporate office in San Antonio or New York. Corporate radio is in it for the pocket book and really does not service the community. I think CC and CBS destroyed terrestrial radio.

I have Sirius and happy with the service. In fact, 7 of my friends and me are on one account. I like the music and talk radio that is other than politics. I think there is good talent on satellite radio, Frank DeCaro, Stern and Jay Thomas. I chose Sirius over XM because of their production. Seems XM rebroadcasts a CC radio station from LA, NY, or Tampa. Where Sirius has its own production, Maxim, Stern, and OutQ. As far as political talk, both offer the best talents in the left and right arena except Sirius does not have Randi Rhodes, YET.
 
NinjaBoot said:
Is it just me, or does Satellite have the ENTIRE country at it's disposal for DJ talent, and all they can produce are the people that air on thier channels? I swear most of them are there just because they are excited that they can drop and 'f-bomb'.
The sad part about satelitte radio: Their playlists are tighter than FM radio, add the fact that they specify music per channel (Punk, Metal, Island, Elvis, Grunge, etc) Not only is it a limited playlist, it's a limited playlist limited to a specific genre.
I may listen to Satellite radio while in the office (just for the shear fact that my father is a year-long subscriber so I use his account via the computer) but when I get into a vehicle, it's back to good ol' radio.
I did the 'listen to Stern' thing for a couple weeks, but that got old, then I switched to the music channels, but inbetween hearing the same 30songs and the un entertaining jocks that occasionally pepper the channels, its getting old.
With Memphis radio, I may hear the same songs over and over, but at least some of jocks on air are something to look forward to.
Plus, I'd love to see a satellite channel try to get the same heritage as a channel like FM100.

The soapbox is now open to any takers.
Click to expand...


xm and sirius are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy deeper than any fm station in memphis. maybe even deeper than all the stations in tennessee, mississippi and louisiana combined!! deep tracks xm 40 has over 7000 songs in rotation. i have never heard any song repeated. ever. even the vault sirius 16 is deeper than any fm station. now if you are listning to hits 1 or 20 on 20. of course its tight playlists. its top 40 ::)
 
FM 1OO is merely local, in a mid-market size market..XM and Sirius are national products, they better have about 13 million paid for programming subscribers -combined- or they'd have to throw in the towel..Just like a radio station, it does cost to operate those satellite channels, it's going to be interesting to see how they will control overhead, stay ahead of the technical curb, and keep up on their promise to be "so much different than radio" over the years, without hitting a major financial road block later on in development..I smell increased ads (whether they go noticed or unnoticed), inflated subscriber fees, and/or the continuation a few big name/big buck talent with a showering of mediocre talent because of low wages (sounds a lot terrestrial to me)
 
Talent costs money. Money comes from ads. Satellite doesn't run ads like traditional radio does. Yes, I
realize Stern got the big pile of $$ from Sirius, but they wanted the biggest name in radio, thinking he would
be a magnet. But Howard's failure to draw large numbers of his ''old fashioned radio'' listeners to his new, outer space show probably doesn't do much to inspire the heads of Sirius and XM to hire other talent.
Maybe when his deal is up, he retires to the Joey Ramone Lookalike Home For The Wealthy, and Sirius/XM hires 1,000 great radio talents and spreads them across a bunch of their channels.
 
Post Master General said:
u know why jocks on satellite radio can swear and not get busted by the FCC???.....cause nobody's listening to complain!!! (rimshot) :D
Click to expand...

yea right ::) thats a statement only a radio person would make. because they hate competition. i have noticed one thing. the only people who hate sat radio. are the people in local radio!
 
Some of the less-than-glamorous side of the satellite thing...
Many, if not most of the rank-and-file air talents are part-time contractors. They get paid "by the shift", with no benefits as such, for 7 or 8-hour airshifts. The realities of trying to operate 120 "stations", mostly out of one facility, and some with "off-site" talent, dictate that most stations are voice tracked. The finite pool of talent is made even shallower by the fact that a few jocks show up on multiple channels. "Elvis Radio" is unusual in that it is actually performed "live", and voice-tracked only in Graceland's off-hours.
 
I think, in our rant against corportae radio, we're forgetting that XM and Sirius ARE corporate radio. They are falling victim (or some would say using prudent business practices...depends on your point of view) to the same mentality terrrestrial radio is...it's being run by the bean counters and finding the lowest common denominator that will keep the audience. I think they've hung a lot on the 'no commercials' thing and aren't interested in getting real talent because in thier mind it's just an extra cost that doesn't add anything.

CC is trying a commercial free format in Dallas. IF they can make money with it, and IF it catches on, sat radio may have to rethink things. It may be that the specialty channels will be what keeps XM and Sirius afloat.
 
I got XM about a month ago. I love it although i do agree about the 70's and 80's stations, they pretty much suck.. I like Deep tracks and the Bone yard. I do NOT miss local radio at all. I drive a tractor 12 hours a day most days, I got so sick of the same ole things and same people.. When the new wears off, i may feel difrently but right now, I LOVE MY XM!!! I like all the Talk radio stations too. Opie and Anthony are almost, to much to stomach but they have some very funny stuff at times..
 
Satellite radio is very much corporate, since no mom'n'pop group would be able to get their own satellite in orbit these days... After all Clear Channel owns a stake in XM and Papa Mel is head of Sirius... So even though I'm a fan of both terrestrial and satellite radio, honestly I don't see either really improving much in the near future.

Food for thought - the only music channels that have commercials are on XM... On the ones that Clear Channel operates. Go figure. ::)
 
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