Digital Radio Wants to End the Buzzing Mish-Mash that You Call Reception

It sounds pretty darn snazzy when you first hear about it. One hundred channels' worth of pristine, digital-quality radio, most of them commercial-free. Channels without static and?more importantly?channels that won't fade out, no matter where you are in the country. Hop in your car in New York, find a station you like and you can drive all the way to L.A. without having to touch the tuner again. No more of those long, dead, empty stretches in the desert, no more of that buzzing mish-mash of crowded signals around major cities.

They're calling themselves XM . Launching in the Southwest next month, then expanding across the rest of the country by the end of the year, they're the first major digital satellite radio network out of the blocks. Their only competition, Sirius, will probably be going on the air sometime next year.

Both networks are being bankrolled by the automobile industry. XM, for instance, by GM and Honda?who are putting an awful lot of faith (and money) in the new technology. It's a partnership that makes sense, because although you'll be able to listen to XM at home, the real advantages of digital radio only come into play once you start driving long distances.

There are some catches. You can't just hop into your '78 Chevy and magically tune these stations in on your battered old car radio. You need some special equipment first. Initial estimates place the receivers at about $300?and starting next year, GM will be offering them as optional equipment in their new models. But even after getting the receiver, it'll cost you about $10 a month, much like your cable television. For that $10, though, you'll be getting some things normal commercial radio could never offer?a 24-hour NASCAR channel, a 24-hour official Sinatra channel programmed by Jonathan Schwartz, a couple comedy stations (one clean and one dirty)?together with a vast array of choices in rock, rap, classical, country, pop standards, children's music, reggae, Christian, new age, techno, what have you. Damn near every musical niche you can imagine has a channel devoted to it. Plus there are news channels, entertainment channels, sports channels, talk channels and religious channels. XM also has deals with Disney, MTV, VH1, CNBC, ESPN and CNN?all of which have their own channels.

When I first walked into their New York offices on 57th St., I was skeptical. Line up that many corporations in one place, I tend to get nervous. Despite everything they were offering, I was convinced this was just the next step in the grand strip-mallization of radio. Gone were the small local channels and with them, the local flavor. I mean, one of the great joys of driving across the country was finding weird little radio stations you'd never?and could never?hear anyplace else. That, I've always felt, was one of the best ways imaginable to understand what was really going on in America. This here was akin to replacing all the little diners and truck stops along the way with drive-thru Burger Kings.

That in mind, I thought I was about to find myself in an environment that was buttondown corporate, controlled by graphpaper heads who let wall-sized computers program their content for them. Ready for that, I walked into that office full of arguments ("Commuters want to hear local weather and traffic reports," etc.). But I gotta admit, producer/writer Bill Kates talked a very good game.

XM's actually based in Washington, DC, in the recently renovated cavernous old National Geographic printing plant. That's where most of the work takes place. In comparison, only seven or eight people work in the airy and comfortable New York office, sharing space with two small studios.

"It was important to have a presence in New York," Kates told me, as he showed me around. They'll be recording a lot of the network's on-air promos and bumpers here, as well as conducting interviews with celebrities who are passing through town. With the new technology they have on hand (including a computerized database of 1.5 million songs), a DJ like Jonathan Schwartz can put together a five-hour show, with all the personal touches, in an hour or two.

Kates, a 20-year veteran of the commercial radio business, says he'd had enough of dealing with station heads who demanded "things that sounded controversial, but really weren't," "attitude without swagger" and "comedy without sarcasm." At XM, he says, he's finding the freedom he always knew was possible in radio. He describes the staff as "a bunch of freaks and weirdos" who know and love the music they're dealing with. Talking to a few of them (like Kates), I found that to be true. Toss a bit of obscuranta their way?Cliff Edwards or John Trubee?and they'll know what you're talking about. And that's the thing?these shows are being programmed, not by computers or accountants, but by music fans?often musicians?who will play songs that rarely if ever get played on the radio, songs they think people would really like to hear. In fact, the working mantra of the operation, Kates says, is "We want fans, not listeners."

Kates himself, whose specific background is in radio comedy, is very excited about the fact that they've signed up Firesign Theater to do original bits on a monthly basis; Firesign has also agreed to open up their complete archives. He's also obtained rights to the old National Lampoon Radio Show archives, where he has access to not only the shows themselves, but to never-before-heard outtakes featuring a young John Belushi and others.

The whole idea of digital radio is a giant gamble. Unlike cellphones, home computers or VCRs (which all started small and quietly snowballed across the country), the digital radio people are starting very, very big. They launched a multimillion-dollar satellite. They're installing antennas (like those you find for cellphones) across the country. They've hired the likes of Wynton Marsalis and Quincy Jones. They got George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic to make their commercials for them. (The one currently playing in movie theaters is ingenious.) They put a man named Lee Abrams?the man who many in the industry hold solely responsible for killing radio over the past two decades with his various programming schemes?in charge of programming. Then they'll ask consumers to shell out a bunch of money in the hopes that they really do want to hear something different.

Who knows if it'll work, or if it'll really be as different as they claim? Some people involved with XM freely acknowledge Abrams' reputation, but say that the pervading notion at the network is that this is his attempt to redeem himself for all the damage he's caused.

I left the offices reasonably well sold on the idea?especially after Kates put me on the phone with legendary DJ and former Zappa associate Lou Brutus, who would be helming XM's weirdie channel. Then I started asking around, to see what other people in related industries thought about the venture.

What I found surprising was the number of people who either had never heard of digital radio, or knew nothing about it beyond the term "digital radio." Sources in the record industry just shrugged?though two years ago they were still shrugging about that "Internet" business, too. Even some people involved in the commercial radio business admitted that they knew little if anything about the new industry, and so couldn't really say anything about it.

To my mind that prophesies one of two things. It either means that XM's new $100 million ad campaign better work at getting the word out. Or it means that the entertainment industry is going to be caught flat-footed again, the way they were with Napster.

There are naysayers, however, who think digital radio may well be a billion-dollar gamble that's doomed. Howard Stern, for one, has been predicting its imminent failure for a while now, and he's not alone.

"I think analog radio's days are numbered, and good riddance," says WFMU's Dave Mandl. "But I think it's also clear that the future of radio is on the Internet. The technology is there right now in spades, it's mostly free, it's a completely decentralized and heterogeneous infrastructure (which is also superior for many other technical reasons), it's never affected by the weather, it can be picked up anywhere and it's basically democratic."

Mandl doubts seriously that very many people outside of specific niches would be willing to pay for something he feels ultimately won't be that much better than contemporary commercial radio. He also doubts that the "commercial-free" promise?as was made initially with cable tv?will hold for very long.

"Maybe [people will want it] in areas where it's hard to pick up any radio, as with cable tv originally," he concedes. "But I think?and hope?things will change as more independent types start broadcasting over the Web. Yes, the satellite stations will have a country station, a jazz station, a Dr. Demento-type station, etc., but that's no big deal: there'll be thousands of each of those and more on the Net."

Granted, at this point in time, there aren't that many radio stations streaming live online. It's also very difficult?and expensive?to get good Internet access in your car?and the people who spend a lot of time driving are digital radio's initial intended customer base. So I guess when you get right down to it, the success of digital radio rests on two things: a race between Internet and digital satellite technologies, and a hope on the part of automobile manufacturers that America's driving public really, really hates the quality of the radio they're currently being offered.

And what the hell? If you want local weather or traffic reports, all you need to do is switch back to the digital receiver's AM or FM band.