Ballroom Dancing

Satellite Radio – Triumph of the Niche

Austin Convention Center, Friday, March 18

The music industry's enthusiasm for satellite radio was palpable at this discussion of the still relatively new form of broadcast media. Austin scribe emeritus Joe Nick Patoski led the panel with an impressive amount of knowledge of both kinds of radio, satellite and terrestrial. Satellite radio is currently available from either XM or Sirius, and Jessie Scott and Toby P of the former and Jeremy Tepper and Elise Brown of the latter evenly represented both companies. Patoski observed that "satellite is doing to radio what cable did to television," and it was agreed that with the absence of advertisers (the services rely on subscriptions for revenue), both outlets are able to program their playlists in ways commercial radio hasn't in years. Brown explained programmers have been able to "get back to caring about the music." She also noted that the average time spent listening by subscribers is extremely high. Patoski represented a lot of listeners' thoughts when he said, "I've been turned on to more music since I've been listening to satellite than I have in the past 15 years." Still, there are some problems on the horizon that no one really seemed to want to address. When pressed, Brown admitted that Sirius has lost $2 billion, yet there was little concern that the plug would be pulled any time soon. There have also been rumblings of regulation of indecent content by the FCC; neither cable television or satellite radio currently has such restrictions. Scott claimed their stance was to "let HBO fight that out."