SiriusXM: Still Not Ready For Prime Time

Demonstrating yet again that SiriusXM's promotions and marketing departments don't know their heads from a hole in the ground, last night's "silver-platter" advertising opportunity on NBC's hit Summer show "America's Got Talent" (AGT) was unsurprisingly squandered.

"Ponderous" is the word that came to mind as I watched last night's season premiere of AGT fearlessly with my 6 year old daughter by my side. For many months now as I have viewed promo after promo for AGT each one heavily featuring SiriusXM's crown jewel, Howard Stern on their T.V. commercials, web-shorts, banner-ads, billboards and twitter mentions, I wondered what exciting new commercial SiriusXM would develop in order to capitalize on the hype generated by NBC's bank-roll.

I sat through the first commercial break... No SiriusXM commercial? "No big deal" I thought "They're probably waiting for the second commercial break to catch the late-comers." Second break, no commercial, "Hmmm, this is a familiar feeling... Something is wrong here...

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Howard On NBC: Will SiriusXM Become "Eh-Eh-Eh" Again?

 

Many Stern fans will remember the day of the "yuge" announcement back in 2004 when Howard Stern informed his listeners that he would be moving his #1 terrestrial radio show to Sirius Satellite radio in January of 2006. At the time, Howard (The King Of All Media and The King Of All Media Hype) began mentioning "Sirius" so often that he was soon told by management to stop using the word on all terrestrial broadcasts. Howard being a man of his word ceased saying "Sir-i-us" opting instead for the multisyllabic essence of the word, and ultimately replacing it with "Eh-Eh-Eh."

Currently, Howard Stern has been cranking the hype-machine back up in support of his much publicized Judgeship on the wildly popular NBC show America's Got Talent which debuts tonight, Monday May 14th at 8:00EST. Many Stern fans have been voicing their displeasure over what they feel is his relentless coverage of his experiences on A.G.T. while broadcasting on SiriusXM. Howard has not been instructed to stop saying "America's Got Talent" on SiriusXM's broadcasts, due largely to the fact that he is currently employed by both entities, and it should prove to be beneficial to both employers...

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Adam Yauch: And Ya Don't Stop (A Tribute To MCA)

RadioLiterate was saddened to learn of the death of Beastie Boys founder Adam Yauch (MCA). Mr. Yauch succumbed to cancer today after bravely battling the disease for several years, he was diagnosed back in 2009 and tragically, he was only 47 years old.

The Beastie Boys first grabbed my ears back in 1986 after I heard the initial beat of the opening drum sample on "Rhymin' and Stealin" which borrowed heavily from Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks" and guitar riffs from Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf." Although I am a Metal head at heart, the Beasties could always pull me in with their tongue-in-cheek Rock attitude, Metal guitar lead breaks and their now classic videos.

I really became a fan after the release of "Check Your Head" in 1992. An album filled with an eclectic musical mixture of Hip-Hop, Punk, Rock and Funk, with the beasties playing their own instruments. I spent many nights in college enjoying that album with my friends, the tracks were a welcome change from the over-indulged Seattle "Grunge" invasion that seemed so inescapable at the time. I will always associate that Beastie Boys album with very, very good times and I am thankful for it's creation.

I have created a Spotify "Play Button" on the right side of this page loaded with a few of my favorite Beastie Boys tracks, offered as a tribute to a very innovative, talented and good-hearted man... Adam Yauch. My thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and friends on this very sad day.

Thank you Adam and may you Rest In Peace.

Jelli Radio: Streaming Las Vegas (A Battle Of The Bands)

Starting this Sunday night May 6, 2012 at 9:00PM and continuing every Sunday night thereafter, Jelli Radio 94.5 FM Vegas Rock will give Jelli listeners the chance to control which Local Vegas bands get airplay on the FM Dial.

Jelli is a social music experience that allows listeners to control what plays on a terrestrial radio station from the web, iPhone and Android devices. Jelli users vote for the artists and songs they want to hear, creating dynamic playlists that determine in real-time what plays. Jelli’s community interacts with each other in live chat rooms and can easily connect their accounts to Facebook to share what they’re listening to with their friends. Jelli’s cloud-based platform takes this engagement and serves programming in real-time on actual FM radio broadcasts.

All Android, iPhone and web users who download the free Jelli App will be presented with a playlist of local Vegas bands and each user will then be given the ability to "Rocket" their favorites bands to fame with radio airplay and "Bomb" the clunkers back into obscurity. Begging, manipulation, intimidation and other forms of influence can also be utilized by interacting with the music-fan community comprised of other Jelli users on their smart phones in the integrated Jelli chat rooms. Each user is allocated a limited amount of Rockets and Bombs but can earn extras by having their rocketed tracks receive the ultimate rock approval or "thumbs up" in the form of the iconic Metal horns hand gesture once they make it to air...

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Spotify: Storming The Gate

Image Courtesy of "Battle Of The Dark Legion" Castle AgeLate last week sources close to Swedish based Spotify (the digital on-demand music collection which is available on desk tops and mobile applications in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and in the U.S.) announced that it intends to compete directly with the current internet radio King in the U.S. (Pandora) by developing a similar "Radio" style music offering. Spotify has already negotiated and currently has in place, direct licenses with the largest music labels in the world including Universal Music Group, EMI, Sony Music and Warner Music along with many other smaller labels. These deals afford Spotify's users the unlimited ability to choose individual songs by individual artists and play them instantly on demand. Spotify users have the choice of: Commercial free music on-demand for $9.99/mo. on mobile devices, $4.99/mo. on desk tops or a free version funded by advertisements.

Spotify (in its current form) allows its users to access millions upon millions of songs, which if listened to individually and in real-time succession would reportedly take over 80 years to complete. (Finally we now have the perfect challenge for all the malignant narcissists in our lives with their vociferous musical snobbery: "So you say you are the biggest music fan in the world? Prove it! Stifle your pie-hole and put these headphones on... I'll get back to you in 80 years... Windbag!) Spotify is continuing to add new songs at the rate of 10,000 per day or (if you will) an additional 21 days of constant music listening added daily. Spotify still has some notable hold-outs, namely The Beatles, Adele and most significantly for me AC/DC. The beauty of developing a radio style offering remains the simple fact that specific artist and label permissions are not required as the non-interactivity of radio falls under a statutory licence. This license allows Spotify to access music (including the music of the current hold-outs) and to a royalty structure similar to Pandora's which is presently negotiated and established by the Copyright Royalty Board.

In recent weeks, Spotify's mobile app has passed Pandora, SiriusXM and IHeartRadio's mobile offerings in the iTunes App Store...

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