Satellite radio broadcasters XM and Sirius won't put traditional radio out of business anytime soon -- ninety-four percent of Americans still tune in to broadcast radio at least once a week -- but the two companies have doubled their subscribers in the past year, to more than 5 million. And as FM radio turns away from rock, satellite is picking up some of the slack.
"The decline of rock on FM radio is of huge interest to us," says Lee Abrams, chief programming officer for XM. "We play tapes of rock radio from the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies and think about how we can bring that back in 2005."
XM's thirteen rock channels include Deep Tracks, a classic-rock station that goes beyond the limited playlist of its FM counterparts. Listeners tune in for shows such as Then Again Live, which invites artists to re-create classic albums in the studio -- the Allman Brothers Band tore through its 1972 Eat a Peach recently. And Tom Petty DJs a free-form show, Buried Treasure, on which he plays everything from Ella Fitzgerald to Jimi Hendrix.
Sirius has seventeen rock channels, including Little Steven Van Zandt's Underground Garage. "It represents something you can't hear on regular radio," says Sirius spokesman Ron Rodrigues. "You could hear anything from Nancy Sinatra and the Seeds to the White Stripes."
Traditional-radio execs say they're unconcerned by satellite's comparatively tiny numbers. "It's a blip," says David Field, CEO of Entercom, the fourth-largest radio conglomerate.
But the biggest radio companies -- including Entercom -- launched a $30 million advertising campaign, "You hear it here first," in January. The ads feature Hoobastank, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Bravery and others touting broadcast radio's virtues. Less than a week later, though, XM shot back with a campaign of its own: "Hear it here best."
