On 15 Aug 2004 04:16:48 GMT, Rich Wood
wrote:


I believe most satellite listeners left radio some time ago and are
sampling the new medium. Unfortunately for me much of what I disliked
about terrestrial radio has been taken to the sky: mindless, yelping
jocks on some channels mispronouncing the names of local cities I got
XM and SIRIUS to get away from the Party Martys of the world (there
are many others) only to find they're there. I turn it off just as I
turned off my FM radio before it.


I just returned from a visit with some relatives and found their media
habits interesting, and rather discouraging.

Their radio listening, such as it is, is confined almost exclusively
to music on public radio. And most of their music listening is from
CD's, not radio. They get 100% of their broadcast news from
television, totally ignoring NPR, one of the country's best all-news
radio stations, and a multiple-Murrow-award winning news/talker. In
my time with them no radio in their house was ever turned on, and the
car radio (as opposed to the CD player) was used only sporadically.

Of course, these people are "55+," so radio doesn't want them. And
their 19-year-old son has an XM subscription. I've never heard even
one of his favorite bands on the air anyway, so I'm pretty sure radio
is completely irrelevant to him.

Hoping I can hang on for a few more years...

Mark Howell