First and foremost, does anyone really care? Is anyone even listening to radio anymore, let alone satellite radio? Even XM fanatic Bob Lefsetz questions satellite’s viability:
… if you pony up, you find out you’re in the wilderness, not a member of any club, not one of any size, and that freaks you out and you abandon your subscription.
He’s right. And he’s not alone. And XM and Sirius only have themselves to thank.
Throughout both companies’ histories, as marketing efforts focused on the “big” names, i.e., Major League Baseball, The NHL, the NFL, Opie and Anthony, Howard Stern, Oprah, Martha Stewart, Starbucks, Ellen DeGeneres, Tyra Banks, etc, what was weird and wonderful about satellite radio began to fade.
Having been been on the inside at XM, I witnessed it firsthand. And for a little while there we (the programmers) believed.
We believed in the true art of radio, the craft, the connection between great music and fans and the curator behind the scenes — a veritable magic of sorts, as those of you who came up through 70s radio knew all too well.
XM Cofounder Lon Levin knew this. Certainly, former Programming Senior VP and Chief Creative Officer Lee Abrams knew this.
Their vision, in the beginning, was all about celebrating that magic. And it was, truly, a beautiful thing.
But then former CEO Hugh Panero brought in the new guard: Programming Executive VP Eric Logan and John Zellner, terrestrial radio’s Infinity kings… not exactly purveyors of Abrams’ wondrous, contagious irreverence, the driving force behind XM’s once-upon-a-time magic.
Across many of the music channels, playlists were slashed and it seemed that XM was becoming a virtual mirror of terrestrial radio, just without commercials. Except, suddenly, there were commercials. Zoikes.
And still today, the channels that are most interesting, most human (XM Kids, X Country, Liquid Metal, Fungus, The Rhyme, Fine-Tuning, The Joint, The Loft, etc.) chug on but go virtually unnoticed. What’s worse is that the talented curators behind them remain grossly overworked and, sadly, underpaid. But that’s another story…
The fact is, collectively, XM and Sirius have a point: our other content options are numerous and in many cases better. So why would we keep paying for a service that’s become not all that different then terrestrial radio, which we can get for free? Good question. And I’d love to say that Mel Karmazin’s gonna save the day. But it’s no secret that Mel’s a business guy, not a music guy. Certainly, he’s no Lee Abrams.
Yet, in theory, it could happen.
Maybe if instead of continuing to blindly throw marketing dollars at the anonymous masses, satellite radio got back to what it’s poised to do best: creating a haven for the “weird and wonderful” and thereby perpetuating the shared experience, a.k.a., Lefsetz’ membership to “the club.”
After all, the masses aren’t fans. And, I can’t say this enough, FANS are what you want. Fans invest in music. Fans invest in the club. Loyal, diehard, spread-the-buzz fans who, simply by virtue of their devotion, will sell your product for you.
And it just so happens that the most likely fans of things “weird and wonderful” are adults… age 35-65… 1/3 of the population… wielding $1 trillion in disposable income. Do I sound like a broken record?
Music Industry Professor Jerry Del Colliano, in a recent Post article:
Young customers don’t have the need that we older folks have to have someone knowledgeable about the music tell them what’s new. They have their social network to tell them what’s cool.
Damn straight. Earth to Mel!
So maybe if instead of trying to be everything to everyone, satellite radio embraced this rather sizable niche and got back to its roots of humans programming for humans, then maybe the magic would prevail and satellite radio would, at the very least, survive… or at the very best, emerge as our savior. Now that would be worth paying for.
© Outlandos MusicTM 2008
3/31/08 | Comments (0)Tags: Bob Lefsetz, CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, Fans, KATE BRADLEY, Martha Stewart, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Starbucks, The Loft, XM, XM Kids —
The concept is appealing: to provide “an uplifting experience that enriches people’s lives one moment, one human being, one extraordinary cup of coffee at a time.” Toss in a “new and convenient way for you to discover, experience and acquire great music,” and you’ve basically bottled, or in this case “mugged” the modern-day holy grail; a self-affirming, musically caffeinated elixir — for just $4 a pop.
Only, it’s a bit of a Grande-mess. On the coffee end, Schultz is apparently on it. “Small” or “Tall?” Whatever. I just want my frothy vanilla latte© and I want someone else to make it.
But as far as Cinnamon Dolce Cappuccino-accompanying soundtracks go, I’m utterly confused. Feist or Kenny G.? Uffa!
Let me get this straight, the “Sound of Starbucks” is currently defined by “speaking the language of love without saying a word?” Cue caramel-drizzled vomit now.
Additionally puzzling was the whole XM debacle. Initially, you already had two fairly successful Adult Album Alternative channels, XM Cafe© and The Loft. The obvious, ready-made choice would’ve been to co-brand XM Cafe©. Instead, Starbucks created Hear Music — mimicking XM Cafe© both in format and near-identical playlists — and, despite having had access to some of the top music experts in the country, programmed it themselves.
Stranger still, Hear Music, the XM channel, didn’t air in-store… instead, some other pre-programmed jukebox got brick-and-mortar sipping status, occasionally directing you to listen to XM, if you liked what you heard.
Not surprisingly, the channel tanked. Buh-bye Hear Music. Hello Starbucks XM Cafe© (formerly just XM Cafe©). Duh. And too late.
Good riddance. Even I was having trouble keeping the channels straight.
Now, it’s Hear Music the record label, “the next step in [Starbucks'] (all-over-the-map) entertainment strategy.” Plus iTunes, which brought about Song of the Day and Now Playing.
Don’t get me wrong, those things make sense. If the goal is for Starbucks to be a music powerhouse, then bene. But at this point, the overall music brand is one heck of a blended Frappuccinic blur: from Radiohead to Gloria Estefan? Not exactly the kind of go-to, reliable resource those of us with discerning tastes require.
If Starbucks Entertainment’s mission is to “transform the way music is discovered and acquired and help both established and emerging artists reach the widest audience possible,” then focusing on said audience, those “typically middle-aged late-adopters rather than younger music fans,” a.k.a. adults, is key.
Hopefully, Howard Schultz’s promise of “reigniting our emotional attachment with our customers” will include Starbucks embracing the idea that coffee-toting grown-ups place a high value on taste — be it epicurean or aural — as well as on the curator behind it.
In short, while some of us may be willing to tolerate “Venti” over “Large,” when it comes to our music, we don’t like to be jerked around.
So, if the $4 you spent today felt elixir-skinny, let me suggest a temporary fix: the New Amsterdams’ Fountain of Youth. Worth every penny.
© Outlandos MusicTM2008
2/18/08 | Comments (0)Tags: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, Feist, KATE BRADLEY, Kenny G, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Radiohead, Starbucks, The Loft, XM, XM Cafe —
