XM has the greatest service known to man and the only people who know it are its subscribers.<\/p>\n
Used to be that satellite radio was new, a NOVELTY! But once Howard Stern hit the front page of "The New York Times" satellite radio became Coldplay. The new thing that EVERYBODY had heard of.<\/p>\n
I know I’ve been beating the service up. And it deserved it. Because of Zellner’s misguided programming initiatives. Gutting the SOUL of XM, making it more like terrestrial, by CUTTING THE PLAYLISTS! But I’ve been assured those days are through. And I believe it. Based on the back hall conversations I had all day. Of lifers (since 2000!) telling me they weren’t going to budge. They’re like the North Vietnamese. They’re NEVER going to give in.<\/p>\n
The Eagles sing we haven’t had that spirit here since 1969? Well seemingly everybody who felt it back then is working at XM. PASSIONATELY! The zeal is what translates. This isn’t a job, this is a CALLING! People have been working seven days a week for FIVE YEARS! Because they believe. And you might believe too. If XM’s marketing wasn’t so goddamn awful.<\/p>\n
Satellite radio is no longer an indie band. It’s on a major now. Used to be that when you told someone about XM, they had no idea what it was. You MADE them listen. Now bring up the outlet and you get a shrug. How do you convert these people? How do you make them believers? That’s the question. Which has gone completely unaddressed at XM.<\/p>\n
Sirius is employing a star strategy. Emanating enough sizzle that if you’re interested in buying a radio you’re going to go with them, not XM. After all, everybody wants to align with a winner. And if you don’t think Sirius is the satellite radio leader, you’ve got your head up your ass.<\/p>\n
They wouldn’t acknowledge this in the XM building. They wanted to quote financials, statistics. But it’s not about statistics, it’s about PERCEPTION! And the perception is that Sirius is where it’s happening. When it’s not really that way at all.<\/p>\n
Go to Sirius. You feel the buzz. The CORPORATE buzz. Everybody’s dressed up. After all, they’re in Manhattan. In a high rise. Whereas hanging at XM is like going backstage. And if you don’t think EVERY concert attendee wants to go backstage, you’re so fucking jaded you can stop reading now.<\/p>\n
People want to feel close. Like they belong. Like they’re a MEMBER of something. There’s membership evidenced in Howard Stern’s show, hell, that’s what it’s all ABOUT! But the rest of Sirius? Except for Little Steven’s Underground Garage you can take and leave the channels. Oh, they’re better than terrestrial, there’s no commercials on the music channels, but they’ve got no SOUL! And soul is a key element of belief.<\/p>\n
I wish I had a video of Lee Abrams explaining his programming chart. It’s got four axes. Analog to digital and culturally-aware to unaware. Use cliches, have contests, play the obvious tracks on the stations appealing to the aware and you lose them. God, the adult listener doesn’t want to WIN the album, he’ll BUY it, if he likes what he hears. So why are all the music stations I listen to on Sirius directed towards a theoretical listener who doesn’t only not exist, but whom I’d hate if I ever met. I don’t want to be a member of that club. Sirius is America. A dumbed-down server of pabulum trying to capture EVERYBODY in the big tent and ultimately nailing, making BELIEVERS, of none.<\/p>\n
But you don’t know this unless you’ve listened to both services. Which only pros have done. Both XM and Sirius listeners think they’ve reached nirvana, but for different reasons. Sirius subscribers are just thrilled to have something better than terrestrial, whereas XM listeners have seen God.<\/p>\n
God is Eddie Kilroy.<\/p>\n
Shit, I know nothing about country music, real country music. And that’s all that Eddie Kilroy plays on Hank’s Place. Nobody autotunes THESE stars. And they’re stars not because they’ve sold a zillion records, but because they’ve made GREAT MUSIC!<\/p>\n
Oh, in his Texas drawl Eddie told me about going to Nashville with forty bucks in his pocket. About making less working in radio than his rent but his boss refusing to give him a raise. Having a hit record running Playboy Records. No wonder Willie Nelson constantly drops in, Eddie Kilroy is the REAL DEAL! I’m gonna listen to Hank’s Place now just to hear his stories. The kind they’d make a Lifetime series about, if Lifetime were for guys instead of girls.<\/p>\n
Then there was this guy Ken Smith, who runs the fifties. Like everybody else in the building Ken wouldn’t shut up. I didn’t even have to put a dime in the jukebox. He just wanted to tell his story, to EVERYBODY! Turn everybody on to great music, the ROOTS of rock and roll. And not only the hits, but the album cuts.<\/p>\n
Then there was Bobby Bennett, majordomo of Soul Street. The wannabe baseball player with distinct rules about what fit on his station and what didn’t. If it had disco elements, it was TOO LATE! And even if it appealed to whites, like the Flamingos, if it was R&B, if it was good, he played it.<\/p>\n
The talk at Sirius is all about business. The talk at XM is all about music. And for geeks like us, it’s heaven.<\/p>\n
But let me tell you, everybody’s a geek. Everybody wants to hear more good music. It just has to be filtered and SOLD properly. Which is what XM jocks do.<\/p>\n
But nobody knows. Hell, I’ve had XM for YEARS and had no idea who Eddie Kilroy was. But does the channel promote this asset? No, it signs Oprah for millions when she’ll barely be on the station. We hear about Derek Jeter when talk turns to the Yankees, why do we never hear about Mike Marrone? Or George Taylor Morris? The XM PLAYERS?? There’s all this hype about hardware, yet content isn’t even given lip service. HOW WRONGHEADED!<\/p>\n
You can’t find a single soul punching the clock at XM. It’s the way the record business used to be. But it’s in D.C. Hell, might as well be on a ship in the Atlantic. Yes, XM is a pirate station. Sold as a luxury liner. And people can’t hook onto a cruise ship holding thousands, but tell them you’ve got a cabin just for them on a small boat and they’re THERE!<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s a vibe at Sirius. Maybe because they’re on the ball in all the ways that XM isn’t. They’re into sizzle, saving the service, throwing the long ball. It’s a BUSINESS story. But it’s not a music story. XM’s a music story.<\/p>\n
The Zellner era is over. The original vision has been restored. XM wants to save your soul. If only they’d convey the message. If only people like me didn’t have to do it for them.<\/p>\n
Hell, their whole AUDIENCE would do it for them if they mobilized their listeners. Made the service appear underground. Form the equivalent of street teams. After all, people believe in XM MORE than the lame bands being purveyed by the music industry. But no, it’s all a Wall Street story. Let’s placate our investors.<\/p>\n
Isn’t this how America got fucked up to begin with? Isn’t this how Japan kicked our ass in cars and so many other areas? By going for short term profits instead of having vision and holding on, waiting for the great hit to land in the stands?<\/p>\n
Less than a decade ago, Apple Computer was a joke. Steve Jobs was an arrogant has-been. Now Apple was on everybody’s lips at the "Wall Street Journal’s" D Conference even though Apple had no presence. Steve Jobs is the most admired businessman in America. Did this happen by playing Wall Street’s game? No, it was a result of having really cool products and marketing the hell out of them! XM was so fucked up that they felt they could solve their problems by making the product LESS cool, playing FEWER tunes. But it’s cool once again. Where’s the Think Different campaign? Where are the iPod imaging ads? Where’s the establishment of a club, even though it’s a mainstream product? God, ever notice that iPod users are a CULT? Even though the device has over 70% of the market? There’s a way to do this. To grow XM’s cult without fucking it up. It’s not through the Inno, other flawed hardware. It’s via radio that is so cool, so meaningful, that not only can’t you live a day without it, but you can’t wait until you wake up in the morning so you can turn it back on.<\/p>\n
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