Posted in 2010 Models, Age, Harley, Harley-Davidson, Motorcycle, Oregon, Products, tagged Ads, Advertising, Antenna, Audio System, Commercial Free, FM Radio, H-D, Harley, Harley-Davidson, Harmon/Kardon, HD, KINK, Les, Music, OCC, Oregon, Paul Jr., Portland, Satellite, Silence, SPAM, XM, XM Radio on February 10, 2010|
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As an “oldster” I remember a time when automobiles (or motorcycles for that matter) didn’t come standard with FM radios.
Back in 1978, KINK FM ran entire vinyl album sides without a break. The year prior they added Les Sarnoff as Music Director. And I remember waiting in the car to hear songs end so that I could learn who the artist was or determine if it was a new release. I haven’t done that in 20 years with any commercial station. Why?
Advertising.
The ad machine ensures there are 26 minutes of ads every hour and in this diminishing musical content/increased ad model every radio station has made changes – for the worst in my view – with huckster ads interrupting the music and snake-oil voices peddling foreclosed houses or bankruptcy evasion schemes leaving listeners with airwave SPAM just like late night TV. Thank the FCC, which allowed Clear Channel and Entercom to acquire anyone, in turn they fired the music programmers and dialed up the wattage on the commercial noise in cookie-cutter repetition for every market – and play the same crappy 25 song sets 24×7.
As for AM radio, I suspect that most people under 40 never press the “band” button unless they want to hear “talk” stations degrade us with their vulgarity. So, it would seem there is a market for satellite programming, but of course the niche listener/technology shifts are affecting all media outlets ad revenue and some are struggling more than others. Services such as XM/Sirius are essentially replacing what used to be the independent small market radio. Satellite radio is a lot like FM in the ’70s where stations varied considerably and few advertisements crept in. But that’s a changing as many of us have witnessed and complained about on our so-called $15 monthly “commercial-free” service.
Satellite radio for motorcycles up until recently was only available by third-party suppliers as radio add-on kits. Back in 2005 Harley-Davidson announced a partnership with XM and a year later offered an aftermarket solution based on the Road Tech AL20. Then all the major motorcycle manufactures started to offer up satellite radio as part of the standard audio systems. H-D made it standard on many touring motorcycles as part of the Advanced Harmon/Kardon Audio System or as kit upgrade. In the fall of 2007, Kawasaki partnered with XM and made satellite radio standard on the Vulcan 1600 Nomad touring models. Honda was also quick to jump on the trend.
XM/Sirius provides little detail on their listener stats. They provide stats on the number of overall subscribers, but they don’t release demographics or detail subscription numbers by vehicle type or channel. That makes it impossible to get public information on the number of motorcycle subscribers. In fact, many of the GPS (Garmin, RadioTech, Zumo etc.) have satellite radios built in, but again there is no subscriber info. I’d like to analyze a consumer breakdown because I suspect that less than 5% of the satellite enable radios on motorcycles have an active subscription.
So how do you roll? Whenever, wherever 150 channels of information and entertainment have to be at your side? Or are you there to experience the ride with all your senses intact? Do you want the freedom to listen to commercial-free music while crisscrossing the country or are you out there to enjoy a quiet ride?
Don’t know what a satellite radio is? Then more info on a XM Satellite Motorcycle Antenna HERE and nothing like an endorsement from OCC’s Paul Jr. who states satellite radio is “cushy” HERE.
Photo courtesy of H-D
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