Signal of radio's future? D-FW gets an early listen
Subscription service touts more choices
07/25/2001
By Al Brumley / The Dallas Morning News
Dallas-Fort Worth will be a launching pad for what could become a new era in radio.
Vowing to "bring radio back to life," XM Satellite Radio announced Tuesday that Dallas-Fort Worth and San Diego will be the first markets to hear the subscription service when it begins broadcasting on Sept. 12.
The Washington, D.C.-based company, one of two satellite-radio providers, will offer a wide-ranging alternative to familiar AM and FM programming: 71 music channels and 29 other channels featuring talk, news, sports and entertainment. The other company, New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio, also will offer 100 channels and plans to begin broadcasting near year's end.
Both companies will create most of their programming, much of it commercial-free. Each will charge subscribers about $10 to $13 a month. Radios and related equipment necessary to receive their signals will cost $200 to $600.
XM has spent $1.5 billion to get its service off the ground. "We intend to change radio the way cable and DBS [direct-broadcast satellite] changed television, by providing compelling entertainment choices to consumers," XM president and chief executive officer Hugh Panero said Tuesday at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York.
Chance Patterson, XM's vice president of corporate affairs, said Tuesday that Dallas-Fort Worth and San Diego are the first cities where the company has shipped the equipment necessary to hear the service.
XM chose the two markets for three reasons, he said: The cities are known for having loyal music fans; residents have "a strong tendency to be early adopters of new technology;" and workers in both areas have long commutes.
The company will beam its digital signals from two satellites. With properly equipped radios, listeners should be able to hear the signals anywhere in the country.
As with cable and satellite TV, satellite radio offers a wider range of programming than terrestrial broadcasting.
Mr. Panero said that about 60 percent of XM's programming will be original, created by its staff of programmers and producers at its 150,000-square-foot Washington headquarters.
"Content is king with consumers," he said.
XM customers will be able to choose from five country channels, 10 rock 'n' roll, seven urban, six jazz and blues, three comedy, four classical, 12 news, five Latin and seven world music channels and others.
The channels will have DJs who are experts in their formats, XM officials said.
The service also will feature programming from MTV, NASCAR, USA Today , Bloomberg, CNBC, ESPN Radio, CNN Headline News, Fox News and BET.
Thirty-four of the music channels will be commercial-free; the others will carry light commercial loads, officials said.
The cost
XM will cost $9.99 a month and will be available primarily in cars, although Sony is making a receiver that also works in the home.
Sirius will cost $12.95 a month but will not air commercials on its music channels. Each company will air commercials on its talk channels, although on XM, BBC World Service and C-Span will not run ads.
Satellite-ready radios will be available in 2002 model cars this fall. The radios will be equipped with three bands: AM, FM and satellite. XM has deals with Cadillac, GM, Saab, Honda, Isuzu and Acura. Customers who finance through GMAC can have the monthly subscription fee included in the car payment.
Several companies are also making adapters for older car radios.
Although the new technology has gotten the attention of terrestrial broadcasters, so far not many are worried, said a local radio executive, who asked not to be named.
"I think over the long haul it's going to take an awful long time to make an impact," he said.
Satellite radio won't provide local coverage, he said, adding that while there are always music formats people can't find on the radio, "if they were super successful we'd already be doing them."
Tom Taylor, editor of radio trade publication the M Street Daily, said it's too early to know what effect satellite radio will have on terrestrial radio.
"This could be the birth of a new industry, but we won't know for a while," he said. "It really is a new technology, and it looks like radio and it may sound a little like radio, but it really is a different thing because this is the first time anyone's made a national push on this scale for subscription radio without a wire."
$100 million campaign
Also Tuesday, XM unveiled a $100 million ad campaign, including a 60-second spot that will begin screening in movie theaters Aug. 10.
The campaign features musicians David Bowie, Snoop Dogg and B.B. King falling from the sky and landing variously in a motel room, an office and a barn. Other parts of the ad show people being showered with LPs, musical instruments and sports equipment.
After its September debut, XM will expand throughout the Southwest in mid-October and go national in November, officials said.
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