Satellites Out

From day one, satellite radio needed the same thing cable TV needed in order to succeed.

It needed: Must. Have. Content.

Ah, but that's precisely what satellite radio didn't have.

Using cable TV as an example: in the old days, fuzzy TV via UHF/VHF was good enough. Sure, it was annoying to adjust the rabbit ears to catch an episode of Three's Company, but whatever. It worked.

Then, one day, MTV came along, and the only place to get it was on cable. Hello subscribers!

Remember the first commercials for MTV? They were advertising something brand new - a channel of non-stop music videos. I bet you still remember the ad's slogan over a quarter century later ("I want my MTV!", as if I even had to remind you).

For far too long, satellite radio was like cable before the birth of MTV. There wasn't a compelling reason to pay for it.

Do you even remember any of the early commercials for satellite radio? The commercials were about as compelling as the product itself. The only commercial I remember talked about a guy driving coast to coast without ever losing the signal. Great, so satellite radio is cool to have once every few years. True, satellite radio is mostly commercial free, but a lack of commercials does not equate to compelling content. It just means less interruption of the same old content people were already getting for free.

Oh, right. Satellite radio offered up channel after channel of unique music mixes. Yawn.

Until Sirius and XM started picking up programming like Stern and O&A, there wasn't really any must-have content to justify buying special equipment and then paying a monthly fee. And now, the geniuses at the satellites are allowing some of the only unique content they have (Opie and Anthony, for example), to be broadcast on terrestrial radio as well.

INSANITY!

The sad thing is, terrestrial radio is walking the same path of lackluster content with HD. I realize that, unlike satellite radio, HD is free once you buy a new radio, but so what? Where's the must-have content that makes a listener's current radio not good enough?

Oh god, some bozo is going to mention a music mix again.

I can't believe that in this age of instant gratification we still have broadcasters stupid enough to believe that waiting to hear a song you like on a playlist is a form of compelling entertainment. Honestly, I find that mentality shocking and downright sad.

A mix of music is no more compelling than borrowing someone's iPod. In fact, it's less compelling. At least, on someone else's iPod, a listener can search for songs he or she prefers.

Satellite radio did not fail.
The programming on satellite radio failed.
That's a big difference.

The programming on satellite radio wasn't compelling. This makes me wonder how any broadcaster with even half a clue would think the future of HD radio will be any different.

In fact, with the direction terrestrial radio is headed (Jack, Movin', seven-second talk breaks, every piece of imaging sounding like a production library demo), it's future isn't much brighter.

For satellite radio to be successful, it needs...
For HD radio to be successful, it needs...
For terrestrial radio to remain successful, it needs...

...compelling content that is unique to it.

Music isn't enough.