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Radio,
Film & Television The
New Portable Radio ... I remember my first portable radio. It was a small transistor rocket-shaped unit {It was the '50's.}, with a small dial on the bottom, a small extendible antenna on the top, and a small earpiece for listening. It was great. If I wanted to listen to Mel Allen call a Yankees game, I no longer had to run an extension cord out the front window onto the stoop and carry the table-top unit out. I could take this thing with me to the park, the river ... wherever. Of course, that far back, there was no listening to the FM band. Strictly AM. But it picked up most of the local stations. When I got a little older and had a car { the '60's now}, of course, radio became even more portable. And on Sunday nights, when the air was less filled with interference and other 'traffic', I could almost always pick up a station out of Buffalo that played some great music, and with hardly any commercials. A little older still, and the world of carry-around portables found me with my first portable FM band radio. Back then, FM was considered almost commercial-less, because it was. You could tune in a station and hear a solid half-hour or more without a commercial. And when it did come to air one, it wasn't like they were trying to make up for all that lost time. A commercial or two, then, voila ... You were back to long, uninterrupted plays of sweet sounds. Now comes a whole new dimension in portable radio ... portable satellite radio. Portable satellite is simple in concept: Just like the old days, you buy yourself a portable unit. {I think that little rocket radio I had cost me $1.98.} But unlike the old days, once you have it, you don't pick up your local stations. You don't pick up distant stations either. What you pick up is a service that, for about $10/month {plus the $200 - $400 for the receiver}, pipes you commercial-free digital audio. Sound familiar? Think back to when cable got started. The cable service brought all sots of previously unheard of channels into your living room. And, if you recall, the commercials were a lot less dense then than they are now. Even on the non-premium channels. But slowly, but just as surely as checks get cashed, cable stations attracted more and more ad dollars and broadcast more and more commercials. That shift only happened, of course, after cable attracted enough viewers to make it worth an advertiser's while. Whether or not a similar fate awaits the new satellite radio programming is anybody's guess. They've barely gotten off the ground yet, with plans for being fully operational by year's end. But if the idea takes hold, then, just like local stations and even the major networks have taken a beating from cable, so, too, will local radio. That's probably not as disastrous in general as it might sound. Most local radio actually already buys canned stuff off the shelf to play anyway. {The old TV show, WKRP in Cincinnati, was precisely about the already mounting pressure on radio to cut costs and turn a better profit.} The real disaster would be for local radio that is locally produced. Right now, there are two major players in this market who are positioning themselves -- XM and Sirius. Both are planning about 100 stations of music, talk and news. And there may even be some crossover stuff like e-com and voice mail messaging by the time all is said and done. The auto industry in particular is interested in satellite radio, and most of the big players in that industry have poured bucks in to help launch Sirius's satellites. Unfortunately, like in the war between Beta and VHS, the two use different formats, so a receiver from one will be of no use in picking up the other's broadcasts. And, just like Beta vs. VHS, there's no telling if the better product will actually win. Either way, one can only hope that the current following of some of the area's locally produced stations don't lose out to this new wave. The odds of hearing anything on the news of an international satellite broadcast about the Champlain Valley are slim to none. ... And listener requests? We don't think so. ... .. ******* ******* If you would like to submit something for our Radio & television feature, or if you simply would like to suggest something you think we ought to cover, e-mail us at ... radiofilmtv@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* ******* If you would like to advertise in this section, or throughout the magazine, please visit our Advertising Info Pages ... or call, write, or e-mail ads@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* ******* |
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