As you might imagine, I was very, very glad to see this:
Sirius XM Radio Inc. won’t have to file for bankruptcy today after Liberty Media Corp. agreed to invest $530 million to rescue the satellite radio broadcaster from default or a possible takeover bid, the companies announced Tuesday.
Good news, indeed. I am glad Liberty saw Sirius-XM as worthy of its money, as I would have hated like hell to see Sirius go silent. I did see something yesterday that was a bit, shall we say, puzzling, though. I can't find it right offhand, but a radio guy wrote a blog post suggesting the folks running terrestrial radio would take solace in the fact that Sirius-XM had "only" about 20 million subscribers. And I'm thinking, "only" 20 million? I'd think that was pretty damn good, and that the denizens of terrestrial radio would be trembling at that number or at the very least be quite worried, considering the fact that Rush Limbaugh draws about the same number of listeners each day and that he can be heard for free. It'd be interesting to see how many more people he'd bring with him if he made the move to satellite in the wake of a newly-instituted Fairness Doctrine. (h/t TOTWTYTR)
Speaking of the Fairness Doctrine, check this out:
After getting smacked around by Fox News's Megyn Kelly Monday, liberal talker Bill Press went on WOR radio's Steve Malzberg Show and accidentally exposed his real goal in supporting a re-enactment of the Fairness Doctrine: he wants to be heard.
In fact, he also wants the Fairness Doctrine back for his own financial gain:
I know why I'm interested in it because I get up every morning at 3:45, I do three hours of talk radio every day from six to nine, that's my life, it's my business, I want to make money at it, and I want to be heard.
Ain't that just like a damn leftist, taking the easy way out. Instead of working honestly to gain a market for his product he seeks to gain said market via government intervention backed by force of arms. What a piece of shit. (h/t Bruce)
Finally today, we have this little nugget from the message boards at radio-info.com. Just a wholly unsubstantiated rumor, perhaps borne of overanalysis, but if they actually did get Justin Frazell on board at KSCS that would be great, for him and for them too. I think he was one of the key people who made 99.5 the Wolf what it was and that it's just not quite the same without him there. And while I know they probably wouldn't be able to do a "96.3 the Wolf," I'd bet KSCS could steal a lot of listeners from KPLX if the folks at ABC Radio were smart enough and adventurous enough to pick up that whole "Texas Country" bit and run with it, i.e., play more of the Texas-red dirt and classic country like the folks at 95.9 the Ranch do and re-work their brand as KPLX did in '98. And if they could get him back into a helicopter every morning and afternoon that'd be even better...
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