Why (FM, Not XM) Radio Sucks 616
wemmick writes "The Washington Post has an article "Can XM Put Radio Back Together Again?" which discusses the history of marketing FM radio, how XM could be different, and about Lee Abrams -- "the man who shackled FM radio to the tyranny of mass market research" and is now program director for XM."
the trick is in the X... (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Albany NY, two words... (Score:5, Funny)
silence vs. bad non-silence (Score:5, Funny)
Cracker Barrel (which is of course not in plentiful supply in the utter boonies, yet) has an insidious, effective plan to make sure you consume their maple syrup: rent (actually, sell but with an easy sell-back plan) audio books.I think it's about $2.50, if you return a tape within one week. It's worse than the addictive chemical in the Colonel's chicken.
timothy
Re:the trick is in the X... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:XM Sux, Siriusly (Score:1, Funny)
Cry me a river you fucking victim. When the rest of the world does something worth caring about, wake me up.
funny how you didn't mention (Score:3, Funny)
If you think "extreme games" are lame, check out my parody [frob.us]. It features Tux, Ellen Feiss, Beasty(Chuck), Bill Gates, and more.
WKRP (Score:3, Funny)
We don't need no corporation...
Re:XM Sux, Siriusly (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, Sid Meier is American...
Re:the trick is in the X... (Score:1, Funny)
But unfortunately, the USA got an early beta version with many of the speech synthesis bugs not yet worked out - the W-president.
Re:radio (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry, they will. This is Slashdot after all.
Re: blue screens of death on the air (Score:3, Funny)
They just started playing a song, when it suddenly stopped playing. After 15 seconds or so of dead air, the DJs came on, complaning about the computer crashing and screwing things up. They tried to get it to play again, without success. Then, one of the DJ's started complaining about a "PCI bus device failure error" on a blue and white screen, and asking what the heck that meant.
After another reboot, they seemed to get things going again - but wow, I didn't know they ran the whole music collection off a Windows NT/2000 box! Scary.
Re:It's too late.... (Score:5, Funny)
I thought WKRP was privately owned.
Re:Here in Albany NY, two words... (Score:2, Funny)
They have more than one song?
Re:Here in Albany NY, two words... (Score:2, Funny)
They have more than one song?
Maybe that's the point.
fast tracker! (Score:1, Funny)
Now where did i put these schleudertrauma releases...
Slashdot troll, found dead at 54! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What Do You Mean FM Sucks?? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you're ahead of the majority of the Slashdot crowd by, oh, 20 showers per week!
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:3, Funny)
Here in Chicago, I'm noticing a trend with FM radio. If I like a station, within a year they switch the format to Mexican radio. Let me count the ways:
- 107.9 - 70's music
- 103.1 [radio-info.com] - 80's music
- 92.7 [energy92fm.com] - dance
The one that really upsets me is the loss of Energy 92.7&5. That was the only Chicago area station that played decent dance music. Did we really need *another* Mexican station?Re:radio (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:1, Funny)
For this reason, I'm guessing that satellite radio receivers would be a big hit in Ryder/UHaul trucks. It would also keep them from having to reprogram the radio settings at every location.
That's a nice thought, but they should probably work on getting functional speedometers first.
Psychographic hax0rz research (Score:2, Funny)
"Real Hacker": 17 to 35, male, jobless. Owns 1.2 bicycles. Lives in rent-controlled apartment with five other Real Hackers. Political ideology: Blast everyone, since we don't have anything worth taking away. Unlikely to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Cries when listening to Weird Al Yankovic.
"Aging Hacker": 25 to 55, male, corporate salary worker. Owns 2.4 cars and 0.00000001 Segways. Has 1.6 kids. Lives in detached house on postage-stamp-sized plot in large development. Political ideology: Blast no one, since we have nothing we want taken away. Unlikely to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Cries when listening to Pink Floyd.
"Script Kiddie": 8 to 18, male, jobless. Owns room down the hall from single parent's bedroom. Subsists on Ring Dings and Twinkies. Political ideology: I 0wnz 3v3ry b0xen. Unlikely to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Cries when listening to Skinemax soundtracks.
"Dot Bomber": 18 to 25, male, jobless. Lives in cardboard box on subway grate. Owns 7.3 newspapers. Political ideology: Doesn't know what went wrong, but is sure it's The Street's fault. Unlikely to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Cries when listening to Pink Floyd's "Money".
"Hacker Chick": 18 to 34, female, corporate salary worker. Owns 0.7 cars. Political ideology: All Men are Animals -- just look at all the male hackers! Unlikely to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Cries when listening to Air Supply's "I'm All Out of Love". Note: Statistical results reliable only to the 6.4% level due to limited population.
"H1B Visa": 20 to 25, male, corporate sweatshop worker. Owns bus pass. Political ideology: Anything to increase the H1B quota. Unlikely to listen to much of anything (works 18-hour days). Cries when listening to Suchitra Krishnamurti's "Zindagi".
"System Administrator": 25 to 50, male, corporate or university salary worker. Owns 1.1 cars. Political ideology: Malthus was Right! Unlikely to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Cries when listening to Weird Al Yankovic's "It's All About the Pentiums".
The rest of the memo was illegible. The ink appears to have been soaked off the pages by a combination of hard liquor and human lachrymative fluids.
Re:Peercast and Ogg Vorbis (again!) (Score:3, Funny)
Because Slashdot's favorite buzzwords are not the solutions to all the world's problems.
If only we could install Linux on this ear of corn, we could end world hunger forever! Unfortunately Monsanto already installed a proprietary kernel in it.
Re:Support Public Radio (Score:3, Funny)
No offense, but I think your mistaken on that.
Minnesota Public Radio here in the Twin Cities is really really quite good. They have two stations, one that deals with music the other with pure news and human interest. I am primarily interested in news. I find the nightly BBC World Service broadcasts to be invaluable. Much news hits Britain days before it hits the US mainstream.
MPR is also the ones responsible for bringing Garrison Keillor
to the air... but nobody's perfect