Radio in Sirius need of customer focus 28 Feb 2007

O'Reilly Radar highlights a great quote from an article in the Washington Post about the proposed merger between XM and Sirius:

"The reason these two companies have 13 million subscribers willing to cough up $12.95 a month for something we all grew up thinking should be free is that commercial radio has self-destructed. All these folks (including me) are paying for satellite because they're tired of cookie-cutter radio formats stuffed to the gills with commercials. They're also fed up with focus-grouped music stations that play the same 60 songs until you keep hearing the chords in your sleep....Really, can you think of an industry (okay, maybe American automakers) that has frittered away such huge advantages and sent its customers scrambling for alternatives?"

As O'Reilly points out, the radio industry has forgotten to "pay the user first", putting listeners needs behind those of advertisers and corporations.

"Just remember how Google got their edge. It wasn't just pagerank and better search results, it was refusing to go the portal route, with intrusive advertising, and instead trying to figure out how to create a better user experience with advertising. Making ads non-intrusive and useful to their real customers was one of Google's biggest breakthroughs. (They will forget that at their peril.)...In a world where you get increasing returns from network effects, putting users second, or third, or fourth, in the hierarchy of your concerns is a losing proposition."