Death of Dance Radio

Death of Dance Radio!
By Mike Schirtzer

“You pay for Radio”?, my Swedish friend says to me in the café overlooking a snowy Stockholm, and I explained that in the United Sates we have the option of having over 170 channels with the purchase of a satellite receiver and a $13 monthly subscription, same as people pay for TV. I than went on to tell my friend the only way to listen to trance, electro, or deep house on the radio is through my pay service. He thinks I’m crazy and I’ll explain that later.

XM Satellite Radio and Sirius are the two companies that offer this service is the USA and Canada, and now want to merge. Both broadcast their own dance channels and do not share programming, although the content is very similar. Each one has a: mainstream/commercial, trance/progressive, house, and chill channel. Sirius also carries BBC’s Radio 1 which is home to many shows devoted to electronic music. Both companies carry DJ exclusive shows: XM offers Armin Van Buuren’s “A State of Trance” and Junior Vasquez’s house show, where as Sirius carries programs by Paul Van Dyk and Paul Oakenfold.

For years, dance fans such as me could only expect to hear Madonna or a mix of Coldplay on our local commercial radio station. In most major cities on Saturday night at 11:00pm the stations would play true electronic dance music and shows with famous DJ’s, but most of us would already be out at the club or sleeping. Stations that brand themselves as “dance” might occasionally play a hit by Dirty Vegas or a vocal track by Tiesto, but that’s as deep as it gets.

With the pending merger of these pay radio services, what will this mean for dance music fans who subscribe? These companies do not releases ratings, so we will never know how popular the electronic stations are, we can definitely expect that the stations will be combined. It could be a good thing since now the one service can carry all the shows that have been split between the two, but realistically costs will have to be cut, as with all mergers, and that will mean less content for the paying customer.

I know, by this point you are telling me radio is old fashioned, it’s ridiculous to pay for it, as my Swedish friend told me. He thinks I’m nuts because of all the other options; internet radio stations such as DI.FM, pod-casts by famous artists such as Roger Sanchez and sites like this one, and mp-3 players where I can make my own play list, has done away with need for traditional radio. I still enjoy the unpredictability of radio, hearing a new song or a DJ say what’s hot is the fun part of being a music fan.

XM and Sirius have provided a place for true electronic dance music fans to go and hear the latest tracks, and the classic hits, and not have to rely on my local station to provide us with one house song a week. This maybe coming to an end or it maybe beneficial we may not know until next Christmas, but until then I will continue to pay for my radio.