Are You Just Going to Take This?

9

Let’s face it, SiriusXM has done a much better job at marketing their service to consumers than the radio industry has. Yesterday this SiriusXM marketing e-mail was sent out to consumers taking a direct shot at all of you. Are you going to do anything about it or just take the punch to the head and let it go?

While we hear how radio is the number one reach medium, how over 90% of Americans spend time with radio, how the 18-34 demo isn’t abandoning us, how radio is free and still easy to use in the car, how radio punches below it’s weight class, most of that is done inside our own house, to each other.

What we haven’t seen is a consistent national marketing campaign, month after month, year after year, marketing radio and its importance to local communities, or the companionship our personalities (local or national) bring to the listeners every day.
And, not just a PSA we play on our own radio stations at 3AM. You know, the kind of frequency our salespeople tell advertisers they need to follow if they expect their campaigns to work on our stations.

SiriusXM shouldn’t be allowed to just get away with telling consumers they are wasting their time with your radio stations. But is anyone in radio going to actually stand up and say, I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Why do I subscribe to Sirius XM? I am in my 60s and NONE of the local stations play music that I want to hear! SXM is the ONLY place where I can hear my kind of music. Ageism is prevalent in the broadcast industry and in the ad agencies that support it. Even the word “oldies” is a dirty word in radio these days…stations formerly known as “oldies” stations now play “classic hits”. So nobody plays any music that I like. I have to go to the bird to get it! I don’t mind commercials on the radio…I still remember commercial jingles that I heard in the 1960s. But I do want to hear the music I grew up with and I simply can’t get that on my local stations. In my area, AM radio gives me political rants, obnoxious infomercials, and hellfire and brimstone preaching. FM radio is loaded with 80s, 90s, and newer music (most of which I hate) and “classic rock”, music that I hated forty years ago and hate even more today.

  2. Good thoughts here, all of ’em. Broadcast has messed it up with long, irrelevant breaks. Satellite is okay but not very compelling really. If I want background music I can get it on Sirius/XM -but they still don’t match the immediacy that AM/FM can (and should) provide. The “jocks” on Sirius/XM? Not bad, but not at all local. (Usually not live.) A post from Mike McVay on “the basics” is a great place for AM/FM to start. Sadly it won’t-because of the need for feeding the ever thirsty bottom line.

  3. Traditional over the air radio should try out subscription models. Works for NPR and, obviously, SiriusXM. You keep beating a dead horse about how great broadcast radio is but the future is bleak when young people are streaming whatever they want commercial free. Even SiriusXM has been proactive with TikTok and Pandora channels. Radio is the record industry in 2002, screaming about Napster but doing nothing to innovate. Start from scratch and make a new model.

  4. What is today’s radio supposed to say, “we’re free…if you want to listen to 7 minute breaks?” Sirius has a channel for everything you want to listen to. Unlike big radio companies whose National Program Directors mix 70’s with 90’s music, you can pick either one or something else with Sirius. Radio won’t do that, because they’re trying to draw the biggest audience. Radio’s local personalities are limited. The talent level is as low as it’s been in over 50 years and the effort level at many radio stations is low too. Everybody wants to work 8 hours Monday thru Friday. That’s not what made radio great. Radio has become Dollar General in a lot of places and that’s what’s so sad for many of us who spent decades giving countless free hours for our listeners and sponsors.

  5. “Roy Radio” is right. Dumping those 9 minute breaks full of clutter would be a great first step. Listeners are willing to pay $200 a year to avoid our spotloads. Think that might be a hint?

    • Yes, commercials pay the freight. They keep the lights lit and the transmitter running. They pay the various “fees” that broadcasters must pay to the FCC and music licensing agencies. But give a listen to some vintage airchecks from the 1960s from stations such as WABC/New York and WBZ/Boston. Listeners did not have to sit through a long clot of spots to hear their music. The commercials were sprinkled throughout the programming and the jocks read some of them live. There were plenty of commercial minutes per hour. But they did not piss off listeners. The late Jean Shepherd, storyteller par excellence on WOR/New York, would cleverly segue into a live read of a spot. I still remember one for the Ornithopter, a flying toy that he advertised.

  6. SiriusXM is hardly desperate. Right now siriusXM has record numbers of subscribers.
    And as for radio “doing local” …sadly no longer exists for hundreds of stations that have fired their talent, and voice track most if not all dayparts. This damage primarily has been done by iHeart and the other corporate owners.
    And younger listeners under 35 will not tolerate 12,14, or more commercials in a row. That has driven most of them to streaming or to satellite.
    Compelling content is the key on any platform, and unfortunately many (corporate-owned) stations just do not offer that. Can anyone name even just 5, LOCAL major radio personalities
    in their market anymore?

    • Spot on, I’m an iHeart casualty of the Bob Pittman takeover with all their cutbacks. At least that creep still has his plane…🤬

  7. IMHO, it’s a cry of desperation from satellite radio. They can’t do local. To bring this up in a tit-for-tat campaign only raises their exposure. For radio, it’s best to not be reactionary and just keep doing what we do best.

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