New York Times Feature: Sirius & XM Use Established Artists To Build Programming

December 3, 2006
Music
One Way to Get Radio Play: Do It Yourself
By JESSE FOX MAYSHARK
IT’S the self,” David Johansen growls, “that finally reconciles effort and effortlessness, injury and forgiveness, control and surrender, conflict with others and acceptance of them, awareness of defects and unconditional love.”
It’s Friday night, and Mr. Johansen is on the air.
His husky, wolfish voice is familiar from his years singing with the New York Dolls and masquerading as Buster Poindexter, but what he is doing on the radio is something else altogether.
“You know why the self does this?” he continues, lingering over the syllables like a hipster Zen master. “Because it is pure unconditionality, which is all-inclusive love.” He drags out the last words over the opening chords of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic,” which starts the next set of music in “The Mansion of Fun,” Mr. Johansen’s six-hour weekly broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio.
This is not something you are likely to hear on regular old terrestrial radio, where armchair philosophy is rarely part of the patter. But it is an example of the ways the two competing satellite networks, Sirius and XM, are using established artists to build their programming, and of the ways the artists are responding. Seemingly every week for the past few years has brought an announcement of a singer, songwriter, rapper or rocker signed to be host of a show or to program a channel. Some are marquee names: Bob Dylan and Snoop Dogg on XM, Eminem and the Who on Sirius. Others are less so, like the folk-rock duo the Kennedys, who have a three-hour weekly show on Sirius, and John McEuen, a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the host of a show on XM....read more: here

12/03/2006 07:29:00 AM

SSG Has Merged. You Can Read All Of The Latest SSG Content By Clicking Here

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

SSG is not a Financial Advisor. Read Disclosure: HERE

--------------------------------------------------------