Satellite radio has really taken off in some parts of the world, predominantly in countries with a huge land mass. Places like America, Canada, Europe and Australia, places where it is difficult to realize national coverage with traditional land-based radio broadcasting without hundreds of expensive sub-stations to amplify the signal.
Yes, without a shadow of a doubt, satellite radio is here to stay for several reasons. First of all, satellite radio is digital and therefore is able to deliver sound of very high quality. Terrestrial digital radio can do that too, you might say.
Yes, that is true, but the coverage of terrestrial digital radio is quite small which means tht if you are driving a long way, you will have to keep retuning your radio to a new station, whereas with satellite, the footprint can cover thousands of square miles.
A lot of new satellite radio channels are springing up all the time. It appears that everyone wants to get their hands on this new phenomenon of wide-area coverage at a cheaper price than it used to cost to cover a county. And why not? The advertising possibility is quite fantastic compared to the old fashioned local AM or FM radio stations. Radio has now gone nationwide.
Playboy Satellite radio is one of those firms that has grasped the potential of satellite radio and established its own channel with a large footprint. It was launched in March 2006 on the Sirius network by Christie Hefner and now has over one million subscribers, which is a truly remarkable figure. There have almost certainly never before been a million opt-in subscribers to any radio network channel ever in history before.
What makes this number of one million subscribers even more striking is that the Playboy satellite radio channel is not part of a package or a bundle of other channels. No, people have to voluntarily phone up or go to the Playboy website and ask for membership in person, that is to say that it costs time and effort to join up and one million people thought that it was worth it.
Something else that is curious is that the Playboy brand is connected with visual stuff – naked ladies, in fact – and radio is well-known for not being particularly good at visual representation. It is clear that no radio station is going to make much progress in the market place using nudity as a trump card.
So what is going on here? Well, the fact is that no-one is really completely certain. You have to subscribe, but it is free at the moment. It is also true that the Playboy brand name is considered cool and distinctive among a certain stratum of society, but will that be enough to keep people tuned in? Only time will tell.
The answer probably lies in the fact that it is free and that it can be accessed over a large area, but they cannot be the only causes. There is most likely a novelty value as well and the quality of the shows will have to be high as well.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now involved with Bose alarm clocks. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Bose Digital Radio.