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Satellite Radio Network
BodyCount07 writes: "CNN has this article on the sea-based launch of a geosynchronous satellite that will provide US citizens with a coast-to-coast radio network. The network will provide news and entertainment channels to its subscribers. More information is available at XM Radio's official site." Well, it's interesting. But broadcast radio is free. Will people pay for radio that still has ads? I suppose if you live in the large country-music-only zone in the U.S., you might be willing to pay for something different...
Don't forget about areas of the US where there is only one Country & Western station, but it only really plays Country. Rock fans aren't the only ones that get pissy when they don't have choices. I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay, but the reception better be good and constant. That's one of the main reasons I have cable (the other being The Daily Show).
It seems quite appropriate that one of the "uninfected" stations mentioned there is KGNU ;).
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Other than that, though, you're pretty much hosed. You can, however, skip the Whitesnake tape and just tune in KLBJ 93.7, they'll be sure to play Whitesnake within 30 minutes.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
He can't do that now? He must like to listen to low powered stations or he's on the edge of their broadcast areas. Thirty miles isn't that far. Most stations that I normally pick up have at least a 75-100 mile listening radius..unlike this 5000 watt station. If you were within 150 miles of it and couldn't pick it up, your radio was broken.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Both XM and Sirius have comitted to overlaying via a network of terrestrial repeaters. Repeater placement/allocation would be determined by satellite footprint calcuations. None of the above will be easy or cheap.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, WHFS used to have an interesting collection of DJs that played eclectic styles of music. Each DJ played what they wanted, not some robot program director's play list. Lots of good music, much of it from bands you had never heard of, in long sets. The DJs were very low key and didn't commit the capital offense of talking over the music. See this page for some history.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
You seem to have forgotten gems like My Mother The Car
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Back when I lived in the DC area (88-91), the radio stations play lists were:
WHFS - Alternative, when that actually meant something
WWDC (DC101) - Classic/Hard rock
WCXR - Classic, 60's/70 rock with some newer Tom Petty sprinkled in
WJFK - Classic/Hard rock
WAVA - Top 40
107.3 - Top 40
97.9 (from Baltimore) - Hard rock
So there wasn't much more diversity, lots of Hard rock, 60s/70s rock when that was popular.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I'm getting bored of hacking DSS and 802.11. Fresh meat!
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I'm probably a good example of their target demographic. I've got tastes that aren't matched by a lot of radio stations, and I'm a gadget-buyer. (I happen to dig 80's, Frank Sinatra, and blues music. Not together, of course.) Sure, I live in a big city with dozens of stations, but most of them suck, and I usually end up listening to Internet radio at home and MP3's in the car.
I would KILL to have access to this kind of radio everywhere. Traveling is such a pain, because you spend half your time trying to find a decent radio station. Sometimes your rental car has a CD player, sometimes it has a tape deck, and carrying more equipment like an MP3 player is a pain in the butt. And no, I don't want to unpack my laptop, plug it into the cigarette lighter, and listen to MP3's on the tinny speakers (or monkey with tape adapters.)
The solution would be XM radios in rental cars. I want to be able to log in on any radio and get my stations. The login process has to be simple - don't make me pound out my e-mail address using phone keypads. And don't make me log in every time, and don't penalize me if I don't log out - I know this makes things hard in the world of rental cars, but deal with it. They don't have this solution available yet, though.
The next thing they need to address is XM walkmans. If I can't carry it with me on my head like my Sony that has the radio built into the headphones, I'm not going to subscribe. I don't see that as possible with their current setup, and that's definitely a drawback.
So it seems their target demographic is restricted to people who don't rent cars, and don't use walkmans. (Walkmen?) There are other problems, but these two alone make it a bad deal for me and everybody I know. Why would I pay XM when I get digital music with my TV cable connection, and free digital radio on the internet?
What's your damage, Heather?
Why can't we seem to put up a national cellphone service like in Japan. If we're spending all this time, money, and technology, make it two way... There are still many places near where I live where there's absolutely no coverage. I guess this is just a rant, but it should be established technology, who cares about nationwide radio except the advertisers.
Which was my point. I grew up listening to HFS in the late 70's and in the 80's. I miss it.
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Punk, new wave, stuff that was nowhere else. Listen to the sunday brunch at the archives with weezil, 9 to 11 am I think, to hear what they used to play. Then listen to 94.7 to hear what everyone else was playing. The lack of chioce, in a major area like DC, is why I want sat radio.
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Probably not. After all, no one pays for TV that has ads. Wait a minute. I pay for CNN, Weather Channel, and other stuff on cable. You know, this just might work.
All joking aside, satellite radio is a good idea. Anyone who lives in an area that Clear Channel has moved into is looking forward to actual choices. (Can anyone in the DC area tell me the difference between DC101 and WHFS?) Those who live in rural areas with only one FM "rock" (which is actually top 40) one country and one NPR station will also love this. Frank Ahrens, a reported/commentator for the Washington Post has written extensively about this.
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Satellite radio is eagerly awaited by at least one exurb-to-exurb commuter that regularly posts to dc.driving. He commutes between Dahlgren and Fredricksburg -- both are exurbs about 50 miles from DC, but are only about 30 miles apart from each other. He looks forward to not only selection, but being able to listen to a single station during the entire trip.
One of the fun things about driving cross-country is that you get to hear local radio. It's too late for most of the FM band - as others have noted, it's now mostly homogenized Musak controlled by small handful of media companies. The AM dial is a lot more fun. Hog feed ads and local housewives calling a cooking show with their pickle recipes and even Bible-thumping preachers add to the sense that you're actually travelling somewhere different, not just sitting on an anonymous Interstate.
Best of all is driving in Canada. The CBC is great!
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Einstein
So, you can subscribe to XMR for $9.95 per month, not including the one-off expense of replacing all your old audio equipment with XM-Ready equipment. Or, assuming you already have a computer, you can put the money into a decent Internet connection, and listen to a gazillion radio stations worldwide for free.
I know it's easy to predict the death of one technology when another comes along, and (for example) it's clear that TV hasn't killed radio yet. But considering that a fair number of Americans have Internet access already, if they put the cost of XMR access into improving the bandwidth into their house, they'd be getting radio freedom XMR users could only dream of.
M
my plan
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
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That's why radio in so many small towns changed from the audio equivalent of the local paper by local people to USA Today. Nothing but bland lite-whatever, and lowest-common-denominator talk show cesspools. The station owners love it though, because they don't have to worry about their own content any more. Just sell a few ads to Clovis's Barbershop and Ledbetter's Used Cars, and you're done.
What little local-origination programming there is left in Heartland America is so down-home it makes Hee Haw look like Firing Line. No news except for syndication of the CNN Headline News audio track, with the occasional break for tornado warnings. Farm reports. Preaching. Maybe the token "public radio" classical top 40.
If that's where I still lived, I'd gladly pay for some decent content. Or lots of CDs.
I work for a publishing company that has produces a magazine targeting truckers. Several staff members were invited to a small demonstration and sales pitch. They wanted two things - one, to get the idea into publications' minds so they would be more likely to make feature stories about XM Radio, and second they want to begin advertising relationships. I'm certain that truckers are not the sole target audience, but it is obvious they made a point to advertise to them. They aren't just looking at the truckers themselves, but the fleets too, perhaps as a potential employee benefit for the fleet drivers. It would sure be nice to have the same radio station when driving cross country, especially if you do it for a living.
I would consider paying for a service like this if they acted as a "repeater" for other radio station signals - it would be neat to listen to a radio station on the opposite side of the country, and there's got to be at least one station that I'll like listening to at any given time.
Who cares what you or I think, the biggest obstacle this company faces is convincing the automakers in the united states to start installing factory audio head units capable of receiving the "XM" frequencies as well.
And you thought cell phones were a distraction? How many of you reading this actually listen to one complete song on FM radio? Yes, you station-surf constantly, don't you; We all have two minute hamsterlike attention spans. Is having 100 channels to flip through a really fantastic idea?
Well, granted, I suppose once you're on the interstate, FM dies and you are presented with Country OR Western as your choices, I think I'd rather try the 12 digitally broadcast techno channels... Hmm.. XM huh?
Anyone else figured out that it would be potentially possible to distribute entire albums at 44 KHz 16 bit quality this way?
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Every time I hear about another "big development in the wireless scene", my first thought is about the bandwidth of the air.
Consider everything that's going through the air even today. First of all, even without human interference, it conducts heat, electricity, and sound. Studies have been done on all three - some very fascinating stuff is surfacing about the effects of noise pollution in big cities on the human physiology. The human contribution to electricity and heat conducton affect the environment in various ways I don't understand.
But then there's the issue of all these high-frequency waves - AM and FM, CB, long-range and short-range wireless networking, television, microwaves.. and their intensity is exploding. I don't have graphs handy on the growth of satellite transmissions or the wireless internet, but I think you can guess that they're following not a linear or even geometrical, but an exponential curve.
Think of an analogy to sonar. If you have one submarine in the ocean, it's going to be able to navigate without any trouble. It simply bounces its signal off of everything. Sure, it might confuse a couple whales and cause them to crash into each other, but it's more or less benign.
But think of an ocean filled with five billion submarines, each one sending out sonic vibrations. Obviously, each one is going to have to send out a vibration that's unique; otherwise, they'll start confusing distances from objects and going completely awry. If a sub sends out, say, a bleep at 440 mHz, and receives one back from a sub 50 yards away, if the signals were fired simultaneously, both subs will think that they're 100 yards apart.
But how many ways can water vibrate? If water's vibrating at two physically sympathetic levels, like the notes "C" and the "G" an octave and a half above, won't it throw off a whole slew of overtones? And can the same cubic inch of water really carry a million transmissions with a million different frequencies and vectors? It boggles the mind.
The point I'm driving at is: What are the possible effects of completely saturating the air with information?
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Never could understand why some folks think a little quiet "just ain't right".
How long is it going to take for us to see hacked xm units on the market? Or a link to XMDeCss on 2600? More lawsuits, more whining about IP. Does anyone know what they are using for security? Smart cards? Software keys? GPS and laser deathrays from space? In a month everyone will be wearing aluminum foil hats and bootleging XM. Just thinking about it makes me want to down my sorrows in a 40 of Malt Liquor. SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
I suppose if you live in the large country-music-only zone in the U.S., you might be willing to pay for something different...
Ever been through Central Texas? Radio there makes you wanna scavenge through your glove box for that old Whitesnake tape you stuck in there 7 years ago.
Shudder
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
will anyone pay for radio at all? There are so many other alternatives now.
Of course, with more equipment than you really want to put in your car, I'm sure you can do this already. Just a wireless Internet link and a streaming MP3 player.
Well, here's to the homogenization of yet another aspect of America...
Satellite Radio Coming Soon(?)
Satellite Radio Coming in 2001
Just the contrary, actually. The problem with American radio today is that 90% of the stations are owned by a handful of companies, and they all play the same pop or classic or country or rock'n'roll songs. The potential for satellite radio is to have a hundred stations broadcast across the continent, reachable from anywhere, and each one targeting a specific niche. One station could just play 80's hits, another grunge metal, another baroque classical, another NPR news, another guitar jazz, and another electronica. If you've ever enjoyed Spinner radio, you've already seen a glimpse of what satellite radio can offer.
Myself, then, I'm all for it. I'd gladly pay $10 a month for the chance to listen to exactly the music I want, rather than music I can tolerate which was compiled by a bunch of suits in New York City for consumption by the masses.
I live in the uk. We have satellite tv, and have recently (12 months) started getting digital tv services. We're also starting to get DAB (digital audio broadcast) radio over traditional frequencies.
Our digital satellite serves, BSkyB and OnDigital, operate sort of half tv/half radio channels. The idea is very obvious. Its a TV station without the pictures. Put the satellite signal through your amp for sound, and leave it on the music channel while keeping the television off. Instant satellite broadcast radio using equipment a large number of people already own.
A dedicated radio network is not necessary. Just piggyback off the television bandwidth. In fact, its probable that you could multiplex a very large number of radio channels into the bandwith of one television channel.
The best part of it is.. if you're subscribing to digital TV, this service is entirely free.
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It's only now that I'm really getting into listening to internet broadcast radio stations that something has happened: business weasels and unions want another big chunk of the pie from advertising to the now larger audience. And now, stations are no longer broadcasting - or even worse, turning into M*zak'd stations with no DJs and no none of the flavour that made up
Is this sattelite broadcast technology going to be broadcasting static after people have bought them and the legal world steps in? Certainly there are licensing issues here, and I'm just curious if everything has been worked out with the artists union, broadcasters, advertisers, et al...
Personally I'm going to wait a while before getting one of these beasts - just let the market play out before buying some piece of tech that will join its brothers in the pile.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
As far as radio goes, I live in one of the best areas of the country... around Boston. There's lots of selection in many genres (unless you like country), but there's still not a damn thing on worth listening to. It's all so boring. The few bands that are worth listening to don't get any radio play. Even WBRU has gone down hill in the last couple of years...
And satellite radio is supposed to be a good thing? It'll be the worst that traditional radio has to offer.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
They will pay dearly, just like the free TV people pay. Worse programming, Infomercials, and extended fund raising by public stations because revenue from advertisers dried up. Think about what is on free TV now. Shock TV, Reality shows, Infomercials, etc. It's all aimed at the dregs of society. There is almost nothing of class on regular TV. Even the ads are aimed at the low life. The messier the hamburger, the less responsible the joyride (spaceship soft drink ad) etc. the better. TV when there was no cable (OK I'm dating myself) was very enjoyable and had high standards. The low quality of Free TV is what is killing the digital TV over the air. Nobody will pay for the equipment to get a clearer picture of Jerry Springer or the latest convection oven infomercial. TV has lost me to the internet where there is real content.
The truth shall set you free!
My mom loved it. I will admit not all programs were equaly enjoyed by all. However, There was NBC, ABC, CBS, & public broadcasting. It was never lots of channels of junk.
The truth shall set you free!
Washington City Paper had a good article about satellite radio. See: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/cover/ 2001/cover0216.html