Local Radio Wins Every Time

A report out this week says that Sirius/XM satellite radio has about a year left if they don't figure out how to make some money. Head honcho Mel Karmazin said that in the several years that satellite radio has been around, they have yet to make a dollar. As a matter of fact, Sirius/XM is about $1 billion(that's billion with a b) in debt. A few weeks ago, I read an article about Howard Stern talking about this being his last year with satellite radio and probably even radio all together. Personally, I think we'll see him pop up again on terrestrial radio in the future. So what does this say about local radio? What us Program Directors have been saying all along every time we get the question "Is satellite hurting you?" I have always maintained that they would never be able to provide the service that terrestrial radio stations do when it comes to being local. Satellite tried to make everyone believe that music is the driving force of radio and that air personalities aren't important. The truth is, weather is the number one service element that listeners turn on radio stations for and then yes, they want to hear their favorite songs. Sirius/XM tried to provide local weather and traffic in some markets but they just weren't able to pull it off like the local radio stations. The bottom line is, your local radio stations are important and they do provide a companionship that is taken for granted sometimes. When it comes to local news, weather, traffic, community events, relating to the market and giving back to the community nobody does it better than terrestrial radio stations.