Just a quick heads up to anyone looking to try out Sirius XM. There’s a free seven-day trial you can sign up for that, among other things, Opie and Anthony trash Memorial Day weekend radio, and Ron and Fez debate which animal Fez could beat in a foot race. Oh, and knissors.

There’s more than 120 channels to choose from, including the Howard Stern channel (he’s still around?), and America Right and America Left. Because all political opinion in this country can be expressed in simple binary: yes or no, good or bad, go or stay.

That’s it!

Those of you who just cannot wait till Apple approves the Sirius XM iPhone app may want to check out Pocket Tunes Radio [iTunes link], from Ted’s iPhone Application Emporium NormSoft. With its latest update, to version 5.2, this $9.99 iPhone (and iPod touch) application can tune into both Sirius and XM stations, provided you have a functional Sirius XM subscription.

There are separate instruction for getting Sirius and XM working on your iPhone. (Sirius here, XM here.) The application tunes into both services’ Web-based streams (so it’s not an iPhone-sepcific stream you’re tuning into, rather the regular Web stream).

The question then becomes whether or not you’re willing to pay $9.99 in order to listen to Howard Stern or Opie and Anthony. (May I add that, again, Sirius’ coverage of the Winter Music Conference was outstanding—so many live sets!)

That is all.

via Orbitcast

There’s something wrong with CBS Radio’s press release announcing the launch, complete with silly “countdown,” of 92.3 Now FM in New York City, a contemporary hit radio station that will replace K-Rock on Wednesday, March 11, at 5:00pm. (Contemporary hit radio, in plain English, means garbage pop songs, distinguished by their use of auto-tune and use of lowest-common-denominator song-writing.) CBS Radio Senior Vice-President of Something or Other, Don Bouloukos, is quoted in the release as saying, “Our assets in the country’s No. 1 market include among them the best known brands in the business. From the most listened to news and sports stations in the country, to the classic sounds of WCBS FM and the adult contemporary styling of Fresh 102.7, CBS RADIO offers something for everyone in the market – including young adults who are using the radio to discover today’s most popular music as featured on 92.3 NOW FM.” [Emphasis added, obviously.] And that, friends, is why the radio business, as we know it, is truly doomed. No, Mr. Bouloukos, young people are not turning on their radio to discover new music; they’re certainly not sticking around through the commercials to listen to new music on a radio station. No, sir, that’s what the Internet is for, and that’s why your business has no future.

Some background information is needed here. For only one more day, 92.3 FM in New York City will be known as K-Rock, a typical rock station that you can find in any city in the U.S. If you can think of a rock song from the past 20 years, odds are, the station will play it. Twenty times per day. The latest ratings put the station at 21st place, one spot higher than a gospel station—there’s people who listen to gospel music in New York City?—and right behind a Univision-owned Latin Rhythm station. K-Rock, as a whole, isn’t doing too well. In fact, it’s doing so poorly that CBS Radio decided it was necessary to completely flip formats. Out with the Green Day and in with the Beyoncé! Opie and Anthony, a show I’ve enjoyed for several years now, was let go, according to Opie’s Twitter. It, apparently, doesn’t fit in with the station’s new direction. Fair enough, it’s for CBS Radio to decide if the show is relevant to the demographics it’s now targeting.

So CBS Radio in particular, and commercial radio in general, besieged by scary new technologies—your Imeems, Pandoras, iTunes(es?), YouTube, BitTorrents, iPhones, etc.—decides that rock doesn’t cut it anymore, and that a switch to CHR was in order. (There’s already another CHR station in New York, a fact CBS Radio decided to spin by saying that New Yorkers now, for the first time, have a choice of which frequency they wish to hear that Taylor Swift song. (As if people care what station they’re listening to a song on, provided they’re tuning in at all.) The thinking here, one can only assume, is that radio companies feel that station formats like rock, classic rock and whatever else—radio formats with large back catalogues—don’t work in an iPod world. Why pay a DJ to spin Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the millionth time when a good chunk of your potential audience already has the song on their iPhone (or other music-playing cellphone) or iPod (or other portable media player)? Better to program a music station with NEW! HIT! music. That way there’s less of a chance of your audience having the song on their iPod, and there’s less of a chance of your audience saying, “Good God, again they’re playing [this song]! Time to listen to something else!”

We now turn to Mr. Bouloukos’ comment, that young people—most of you guys are young people, I would guess!—are “using the radio to discover today’s most popular music.” First off, that wording is just wrong. If a song is already popular—remember, 92.3 Now will only only play “hit music”—then the odds are that people have already heard it before; in other words, hit music is already popular! A song becomes popular when a lot of people know it, and enjoy it. If a song is popular, then people aren’t, by definition, “discovering” it! (Amateur Hour at CBS Radio, apparently.) Even giving Mr. Bouloukos the benefit of the doubt, that what he meant to say is that people are using radio to discover new music… well, good luck bro. I’d like to find the last 17-year-old in America who is using commercial radio as his primary source of new music. I mean, it’s not like these kids are using THE INTERNET to find new music, right? MySpace Music, music blogs like Hype Machine, sites like Imeem and YouTube, etc. (Then these kids turn around and buy said music either directly from the band’s Web site, or use iTunes or, yes, download it “from BitTorrent.” (BitTorrent is an Internet protocol; you don’t download things “from it.”)

You wanna know how I “discovered” Buraka Som Sistema, this ridiculous electronic group from Portugal? (Yes, I readily admit that my tastes in music are a little on the unusual side, at least by American standards.) On What.cd, a popular BitTorrent site, I was reading the profile of M.I.A., the girl who sings all those songs in Slumdog Millionaire. There’s a little related artists diagram, and one link leads to Buraka Som Sistem. I grab their latest album and say to myself, “holy smokes this is amazing.” (My favorite song of theirs happens to be “Yah! (The Count and Sinden Remix)”.) These guys are coming to New York in May, so barring some sort of catastrophe, I will be there and I will enjoy every last minute of it.

Never mind that commercial radio in New York City will never play Buraka Som Sistem!

Let’s try another example of how people discover new music in the year 2009. Opie, from the aforementioned Opie and Anthony show, had tweeted—there’s this thing called Twitter, CBS Radio, that I’m sure you’ll try to use before the year is out—a picture of a couple of CDs he had in his car. One of them was MGMT, an indie rock band that I had never heard of till then. Before you know it, hey, I’m now a fan of MGMT. What introduced me to this band? Nope, not crusty old commercial radio, but Twitter, a largely rubbish Web 2.0 site that, for all its faults, lets people talk nonsense rather effectively. One Tweet later, I now have another band to see when they swing by New York City.

CBS Radio, that is how people are “discovering” new music in the year 2009. They’re not listening to the radio, sitting through commercials, waiting for the marble-mouthed DJ to say, “Hey, here’s [Cool New Band].” Yes, we know. We heard about [Cool New Band] two weeks ago via Twitter/Facebook/MySpace Music/whatever. Thanks for trying to remain relevant, though!

Now, I still think radio, as a medium, isn’t dead yet. Plenty of people listen to talk radio, whether it’s of the comedy variety à la Opie and Anthony, of the political variety à la Hannity or Rush, or of the sports variety. (My God does sports radio delve into minutia!) Radio is great for news, too: nothing wrong with listening to the headlines while you’re stuck in traffic on the BQE. But this idea that CBS Radio, and others, cling to, that commercial music radio has a future, that people still seek out commercial radio to listen to new music, is laughably outdated.

This doesn’t look good. The Times is reporting that Sirius XM, home to Opie and Anthony, “has been working with advisers to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing.” Of course, that’s different from OH MY GOD THEY’RE GOING BANKRUPT RIGHT NOW, but it’s not a good sign.

The satrad company has been working with some fancy bankruptcy lawyers, and it’s possible that a Chapter 11 filing could happen in the next few days.

The Times also notes a subplot: this could be a ploy to get EchoStar, which recently bought a boatload of the company’s debt, to make a formal bid for the company.

I imagine we’ll be hearing about this as the night progresses.

Sirius XM have finally showed off its first interoperable radio, the MiRGE. It’ll be available this spring for $250, and you’ll be able to subscribe to a new $20 per month plan that gets you “Sirius plus XM Everything” (cool how it’s marketing it as “Sirius plus THAT OTHER COMPANY”). Yes, both services, completely, for $20 per month.

You do have to wonder what the point of such a radio is, though, considering all the channel changes and merges. (Oh, wait, no you don’t: it’s to placate the FCC.) That is to say, with XM Everything + Best of Sirius you’ve pretty much got everything you’d want, except maybe some of the sports channels.

The radio itself doesn’t look to be anything special; nothing about it says 2009 versus, say, 2006, when both companies were still at each other’s throats. You can record up to 60 minutes of programming with it, though. Gee, thanks.

I can’t see too many people plopping down $250 on a satellite radio in this environment. And, really, the only people who’d benefit from it would be new subscribers or folks who need every sports channel ever. Otherwise, hold on to what you’ve got.

Meanwhile, here’s two bonus photos I took from today’s Opie and Anthony show, featuring the nail-biting Guitar Hero showdown between Danny (creator of Secret Show to the Future) and some smug intern named Evan. Evan won, barely.

via Orbitcast

Did Santa Claus give you a Sirius XM Radio yesterday? Boy are you in for a treat if he did, since “Secret Show to the Future” will be re-airing tomorrow night (Saturday, 12/27) at 9pm on XM channel 202 and Sirius channel 197.

You’ll remember that this program recently won our (well, my) Best in Satellite Radio awards. The awards were even mention on 12/17’s Opie & Anthony and Ron & Fez! At the very least an intern on those shows’ staff reads us. Unbelievable.

Briefly, the guys from the Opie & Anthony show, including “Secret Show to the Future” creator Danny, Anthony (the Anthony in Opie & Anthony) and Sam “Foreshadow” Roberts, do live commentary to the movie Back to the Future. It’s sorta like BD-Live or regular DVD commentary, only live and over the radio. Well, it was live in the summer.

So if you’re staying home on Saturday night and don’t mind over-the-top silliness, I highly recommend tuning in. If you ask me, this show alone is worth the $15 monthly Sirius XM fee.

As the only satellite radio fan here at CrunchGear, I feel it’s my duty to review the year that was and point out some of the events that made the medium such a joy. This isn’t a typical “Top 10 Movies” snoozefest, but rather an illustration of what makes satellite radio inherently superior to regular, terrestrial radio (provided you don’t mind a nominal monthly fee).

Please note that this list isn’t to be ranked, but seen as a sum total “these were the best moments of the year, in my [worthless] opinion.”

With that…

1. The Back to the Future Secret Show on XM. If any broadcast showed the power of satellite radio it was this one. Hosted by the Opie and Anthony staff (minus Opie), they narrated the classic movie Back to the Future live on the air, riffing on the abject corruption of Mayor Goldie Wilson, the awkwardness of having your high school-age mother hit on you in the past (even though you’re from the future and know she’s your mother) and just how big a creep the Doc is. I could have done without Sam’s last 100 examples of “foreshadowing,” however.

2. The Ron and Fez election special on XM. The great Ron Bennington, as well as the rest of the Ron and Fez staff, should be applauded for their election coverage this year. Rather than focus on the horse race aspect of the election—oh my God, candidate A is six-tenths of a point behind candidate B in sate Y!—the Ron and Fez team went the other way, telling heartfelt stories about what the first black president meant to them. The many terrible songs about the election, submitted by the show’s listeners, made light of the awful importance of the election.

3. Coldplay Nation on Sirius. Please note that this is a catch-all selection. That is, whenever any band “takes over” a channel it’s worth listening to (provided you like the band). I merely picked Coldplay because they were everywhere this year. Their songs were in iTunes commercials, the BBC used “Life in Technicolor” for its Olympic coverage, etc. (Though the New York Times went out of its way to hate on the band.) When was the last time your local rock station (“the real home of rock and roll,” no doubt) has done anything like this, letting bands run the station?

4. The Winter Music Conference on Sirius and XM. Yes, I’m biased toward electronic music, but Sirius really goes out of its way to make this festival seem special on its airwaves. (Or, about as special as it can feel when you’re 1,000 miles away from Miami.) For that one week in March all you need is Area (called Area 33 back then) or BPM. Lots of fun.

5. The merger, shared content, the firings and the future. The dumb merger between XM and Sirius finally went down this year, and it wasn’t until the fall the people started seeing Howard Stern on their XM radios and O&A and Ron and Fez on their Sirius units. The shared content between the two services hasn’t been well received by everyone, but think of all of the people made redundant by the merger. (Not that it matters: look at Sirius XM’s stock price.) The question now becomes wether or not Mel can find the money to keep the service running, so that we can look forward to the Back to the Future Part 2 Secret Show next year.

Following the merger, XM content has made its way to Sirius-branded radios. This photo shows XM’s Opie and Anthony playing on a Sirius radio, on channel 197, and Howard Stern on an XM radio.

Yeah, it’s weird.

Mel Karmazin, the CEO of Sirius XM Radio, was just on the Opie and Anthony show

Karmazin also said that he didn't know if Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez (another fine radio program heard on XM channel 202, noon to 3pm) alone constitute a channel. So one would think he has some changes in mind as far as that goes. That could mean moving them to a new channel, or bringing additional talent to 202 to flesh out the programming. Jim Brewer would feel right at home, right?

That was pretty much the gist of it. It sounds as if Opie and Anthony are more than welcome on Sirius XM Radio, possibly, maybe having to give up on terrestrial radio in the process.

CBS, you probably already know, has a wonderful, free application for the iPhone on the Apple App Store. Terrestrial radio will have to continue to innovate along those lines if it wants to compete in the current radio climate, where everyone has every song they’d ever want on their iPod or cellphone, or can tune into Internet radio using programs like Pandora. That, and now a combined satellite radio company less concerned with making the other guy look bad, and more concerned with convincing people to leave commercial-laden terrestrial radio once and for all. (Karmazin also expressed his dislike for satellite radio music channels with commercials, so expert moves in that direction, too.)

Interesting times to be a radio fan, to be sure.

Opie and Anthony (Possibly NSFW)

A follow-up to yesterday’s “What of O&A?” post, Sirius XM Radio CEO Mel Karmazin is slated to appear on the show during the 9am hour today.

Opie and Anthony fans know that Karmazin has always been a “Howard Stern guy,” so this should make for good radio. Karmazin is similarly scheduled to be on Howard Stern, if you’re so inclined to seek out that audio.

And to the paranoid fans: if O&A were as vital to XM’s success as we’ve been led to believe, why wouldn’t Karmazin renew their contracts? Surely personal bad blood shouldn’t get in the way of maximizing shareholder value, right?

via Orbitcast

Following the approval [PDF] of the XM-Sirius merger (read: buyout), we can now focus on some of the specifics of the deal, fallout, and all sorts of post-merger hysterics. The first order of business: what happens to Opie and Anthony, of which I’ve been a fan since their WNEW days?

Their contract with XM expires on October 1, but, according to what they’ve said on the show, XM has yet to approach them about a renewal. That may well have been the fault of the merger, but now is when people will speculate for fun. Copy-paste, BCC, etc.

Mel Karmazin, slated to be the combined company’s CEO, has long said that he doesn’t like the idea of sharing content between satellite radio and terrestrial radio. Opie and Anthony can currently be heard on terrestrial radio in New York, Boston, Cleveland and other cities.

To uncertainty!

via Orbitcast

We’ll all be dead before XM and Sirius merge, but the two companies would like the whole wide world (or whoever reads PR Newswire) to know how they think they’ll end up financially once they’re one company. (What an awfully constructed sentence.) The headline here is the combined company will have positive cash flow in 2009.

They did re-state that, technically, Sirius will be taking over the assets of XM.

So, pretty boring financials that might please Wall Street, but we couldn’t really give a toss about. I’d like to know what sort of “clerical error” led to XM not paying Opie & Anthony for the past two months.

Dr. Michio Kaku—yes, he has a MySpace—world-renowned physicist and, as Peter put it, a “smart mofo,” was on the Opie & Anthony Show yesterday (you can grab it off Audible.com here) discussing all sorts of things that made me feel like to total idiot. Whether or not there’s life on other planets (Kaku says yes. As to why we haven’t been visited by other life forms yet, he answered, Do you walk down a hill and talk to an ant hill? Earth isn’t all that interesting when you think about it on a cosmic scale), how real science fiction movies are, and time travel. That’s what concerns us here.

Asked how close, technologically, we are to time travel—it’s theoretically possible because time flows like a river or something—Kaku pretty much just laughed. Apparently we’re not even a Type I civilization; time travel requires at least a Type III civilization.

To further put into perspective of how far off the mark we are, says Wikipedia, which I trust inherently:

Using our nuclear explosion tests as a perspective, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, produced an estimated 57 megaton yield; even a Type I civilization produces roughly 25 megatons of TNT equivalent a second. A Type II civilization produces 4×10^9 times more energy (4 billion hydrogen bombs per second), and a type III 10^11 times more yet.

So while we’re all having fun with our cute little toys—iPhone, WiMax, Wii Fit, etc.—we, as a technological society, have a long, long way to go before we start doing anything truly interesting.

Enjoy your meaningless day!

Oh, and Dr. Kaku has a book explaining all this in great detail. I’m definitely buying it tomorrow.

I completely forgot to mention this the other day: now that XM is in the podcast business, it has started a promotion that gives away two weeks of streaming XM Satellite Radio. Yes, two free weeks of XM, complete with specialty channels like The Virus and that Oprah one. I hear XM is thinking about changing the name of the MLB channel to “Steroids: Everyone uses ‘em.”

So yeah, two weeks of free XM. If you’ve ever signed up for one of these free promotions in the past, you may have to register with a diferent e-mail address than you did last time.

Free XM Trial [XM Satellite Radio]

I’m gonna be paying closer attention to satellite radio from now on, not just because the bosses told me to, but because the proposed merger is the defining moment of our times. It’s like the moon landing.

XM is now in the podcasting game. The satellite radio company has created several podcasts, many of which are exclusives. Right now, you’ll find podcasts ranging from sports talk like that James Carville show, XM Artist Confidential and, my personal favorite, animated clips from the Opie & Anthony show. Basically, someone takes stories told on the air and animates them. It’s funnier than it sounds, believe me.

The podcasts are free for now, so be sure to check ‘em out of you have the time.

And to the O&A fans in the house, I didn’t like Roland’s favorite movie of the year, “Once“… I loved it! (That’s not a joke, by the way.)

XM is Podcasting: Select shows now on iTunes [Orbitcast]

XM Podcasts [XM]

Remember the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest? It’s coming back, sort of, thanks to Opie and Anthony. Right now, we only know that it’ll involve lots of water and the winning of a still hard to find Wii. This story is developing as we speak (that is, they just announced it on their FreeFM show), so be gentle if the information is still a little raw.

But kudos to the Opie & Anthony show. I’m sure they’ll create innumerable new fans by doing this.

Opie and Anthony