I may have already touched on this subject lightly. But I'd like to go a little more in-depth if I may. This diary will be left wanting for research, data, and breaking news. Mostly anecdote and opinion. But actually I'm more interested in what you think. I already know what I think, and frankly I'm tired of hearing myself say it. We are about to witness the beginning of an enormous shift in how consumers come to expect to receive their news. Oh, I know there have already been glimpses of it. But I'll tell you what led me to this divine revelation after the flip.
Working with a 20 year old man (ok, boy), recently, we got to talking about a new car he's buying. Ahhhh I remember my first car. A 1962 Corvair, I believe it was. A piece of crap. But it was mine! And I got to drive it a whole 3 and a half weeks before the oil seals gave out, and I was back to trading rides for joints in no time.
This lad has some money, so he won't be going through what I went through. But even if he didn't ... he still wouldn't be sharing my experience. For me, it was all about the stereo. It had to have at least two speakers ... and the coolest FM converter I could find. Back then, AM radios were still the standard, and it was only us long hairs that were having the FM converters put in so we could listen to our commie pinko rock stations. We listened to DJs talk dirt about "The Man" while they ramped into a Mitch Ryder cut ... or an anti-war rant by Madame Baez. We were on the cutting edge with new equipment, and an attitude that scared the living shit out of our parents.
Not this kid. To him, neither AM nor FM radio mattered a lick so long as he had XM. And why would it matter to him? Everything he knows about music and information has been injected into his freshly coifed, bed-head skull (thanks 4) by a digital Ipod since the day he was old enough to press "play." Radio must seem to him as 8-track tape did to me when I finally saved enough for a CD player.
Radio is a dinosaur. But it's just been kind of hanging in there like the last descendant of a really healthy Brontosaurus ... just waiting for someone to finally put it in the ground.
And so is Rush Limbaugh.
XM has a channel called "America Right." Can you name a single show on it? A single one?
But if I say "Air America Radio" you can probably give me the entire lineup. You can tell me the whole history about the missing paychecks, and the dissing between Al Franken and Rachel Maddow.
Randi Rhodes has every ounce of the passion and indignance of every jock that got my heart pumping about getting out of Viet Nam back in '71. The woman can throw down a sermon like The Rev King himself, and then go to a break like she just farted in Rush's face and he doesn't even know it yet. She is a DIVA. And she's OURS!
And we even have AM covered. But I'll bet dollars to donuts that Ed Shultz is prepared to abandon the amplitude modulation for satellites at a moment's notice if he has to. Shultz is Rush's match.
And we have the two absolute hottest, most brilliant news programs on television: Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, and Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Reprt. My God, I haven't stayed up to watch televion past 11 pm because I absolutely HAD to since Johnny retired.
Rush is tired. He comes on the air and laughs into the microphone like a clown laughing through the pain of his real life. He's spent the last 6 years writing, and re-writing, and RE-re-writing the same talking points over and over so you don't get wise that he's just saying the same crap every single weekday for three hours. He has no passion. He still has numbers, yes. But remember, we're talking about the not-too-distant future, and a certain prediction of things yet to come.
So I'm talking to this 20 year old kid, and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. He's only just now old enough to buy a car and equip it with the medium of his choice. How many 20 year olds are out there buying cars right now that were also raised on Mp3 players and editable wave files and TiVo?
We might have expected a Satellite Revolution when XM and Sirius first became available. And when it didn't happen, we jumped to the conclusion that it was going to be another one of those "passing fads." Just like our grand parents said about television. But it was their kids ... our parents, who were raised with having the picture and the sound both ... that finally took it to the next level.
Kiss radio goodbye. It's not a good medium. It's not even good entertainment anymore. It's all owned by a bunch of Limbaugh's golf buddies now anyway. The DJs have all been fired and replaced with voice tracking. And the passion is painted on like a polyvinyl billboard.
Maybe it's time we stop even referring to Rush, I don't know. It's kind of sad to listen to really. It's like listening to a guy who's wife is leaving him and he's character-assasinating with his buddies about how the pitiful whore will never survive without him.
And when 30, 60, 80 percent of new vehicles (whether traditional or electric or they burn fucking Bush talking points - doesn't matter) ... are all outfitted with satellite radios and Mp3 players ... we'll already be there.
Hm. Come to think of it, this 20 year old kid and I may be sharing the same experience after all. It's just that my signal disappeared under bridges. His will just stop and wait til he comes out on the other side. But we were both there to see it happen right from the beginning.
Cool.
.