Posted by adma
on June 14, 2008, 9:47 pm, in reply to "Re: Sirius Canada cub scout"
99.233.96.153
Okay, apologies if I overstated satellite's failure--as inferred in the posts I responded to, it only "failed" relative to the supposed grandiose claims of its champions, that it was destined to blow terrestrial off the map, etc. (I awkwardly tried to account for that in referring to the "failure/underwhelming nature of satellite".)
But to reiterate: a lot of those mass cultural forces that were "meant to" migrate to satellite wound up migrating away from radio altogether. I agree with you: I can't see those who *did* choose satellite easily shifting back to "free" terrestrial, even if they find satellite's fare falling short of expectations. However, the fact of there possibly being fewer satellite adapters than expected (esp. those under 35 or so) isn't exactly a sign of terrestrial winning the medium wars, either.
And aside from all that, remember that a lot of these sneers over satellite's lack of terrestrialesque "mass reach" are no different from those who knock public or campus radio. Maybe, in the end, satellite *was* meant to be more of an "premium choice" medium--other than what that adjusted reality may mean for the bottom line, so what? The sneers come from the mentalities for whom quantity = quality, and for whom 10,000 pigeons for quack-medicine infomercials are more valuable than 100 serious music fans--and who pretend that's no different today from 30 or 40 years ago...
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