Last week the Department of Justice announced that it was closing its investigations into the proposed merger between the two sole satellite radio providers in North America: XM and Sirius. The DOJ declined to oppose the merger on the grounds that it would harm competition. The week before, the former Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, announced on the Howard Stern Show, of all places, that the FCC would likely rule on the merger by the end of the month.

In what has become a sign of the constantly-evolving field, satellite radio providers are being seen not as competitors with each other, but rather as competitors with the various other platforms wishing to be the vehicle of choice for delivering music content to consumers. The combined entity proposes to keep separate subscriptions for existing and future members while eventually rolling out a combination of both services, which would require new receivers to come on to the market. According to Sirius CEO and merger brain-child Mel Karmazin, there is currently only one such receiver in existence, and it’s in his office.

Karmazin has also announced that the newly-merged company will offer “a la carte” services that provide options with less channels and lower prices, in a move likely meant to allay fears of a price-setting monopoly as much as to expand the combined company’s user base. Speaking to the issue of competition, Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes stated this week that, “Compared with commercial radio, a merged XM and Sirius would look like Florence in the Renaissance.”

While I’m not entirely sure I know what the fuck Gomes is talking about, I do agree with what seems to be his premise. There is very much a shift going on in this segment of the industry, and it continues to evolve and become muddier as synergies and advancements in technology leave the door open to new ideas and players. The satellite radio providers, with their 20 million subscribers, are less in competition with each other than they are with the other forms of delivering content to consumers.

This part of the business used to be pretty straightforward. Record labels used to record artists and press records; in turn, they spoon-fed terrestrial radio stations with singles used to market their artists. The labels then sold singles (often absent from the full-length) and the radio turned a buck by selling ads—a nice and cozy relationship. For reasons too numerous to list here, that system began to function less well in the ’80s, partially because other forms of media began to play music, lessening the authority of radio’s function as a filter for the consumer.

In recent years, a further weakening of the old system and growing consumer dissatisfaction with it as a reliable filter to let the good in and keep the garbage out has opened the door for competition to combine new technologies and services to provide alternatives. Terrestrial radio still claims over 200 million US listeners to satellite radio’s 20 million.

Consider, however, the iPod, which is fast approaching its 150 million-sold mark (worldwide, of course), and the more than three billion songs sold on Apple’s iTunes that play on its iPod player. Internet radio increased its listenership 26 percent from January 2006 to January 2007 to 72 million listeners. There are subscription-based services such as Napster and Rhapsody that allow users to access a giant pool of songs for a flat monthly fee. Wi-Fi technology and the prevalence of home networks, in addition to office networks and public Wi-Fi hot-spots, have allowed web-based services that use predictive engines to create streams of playlists derived from users listening preferences to expand their services to handheld devices—such as that from Slacker.com, which can download new content whenever connected to the internet. The latter, the most cutting-edge and uncertain of these new forms, may be made more feasible as companies like Google and Earthlink dive into blanketing entire sites with wireless internet (WiMAX).

Still, all of the new forms have their problems. The iPod requires the consumer to purchase or steal music to fill it, which generally necessitates the consumer being made aware of the existence of the artists they fill their iPod with. So while it can compete with the attention of the consumer for listening time, it cannot tease the consumer with new content that they may, in turn, fill the iPod with. Rhapsody and Napster require the user to be connected to the internet via personal computer to access and play the library of content. Similarly, services like Pandora and Slacker require the user to be connected to the service, or for the portable device that works with the service to connect to the web fairly frequently, to refresh with new content.

The biggest problem with all of these alternatives is that none provide a filter for the massive amount of new music that comes out every month. Rather, each requires someone to have filtered through the content before it is added to their repositories and then requires the end user or software “Bot” to choose the content they will hear for them.

Terrestrial radio is here to stay, and its updated cousin “HD Radio” will breathe new life into its existence. Unfortunately, both are still likely to be plagued by the staleness that has given rise to the competition. The two services that currently have the potential to provide the niche, indeed the need, for filtering the content are internet and satellite radio. Both provide the consumer the diversity to choose from genres while letting someone else act as the filter, keeping out the crap and letting through what is worth the listen while maintaining the diversity needed to support everyone’s taste—something terrestrial radio stopped doing a long time ago.

Let’s face it: In these fucked-up, uncertain times for music, we need some reliable filters. We all want to have consistent and reliably good new music delivered to us. Every music nerd loves the act and exhilaration of discovering a new act on their own, but the older we get, the less appealing digging through blogs or old record crates on a daily basis in search of new music becomes.

I personally reserve my searching for the weekends. There just came a point when, against my better judgment, I developed other interests. Of course, this really isn’t about your average music-whore at all. It’s about your average consumer who couldn’t care less about searching for good music. If you give ‘em George Michael, they will rock-the-fuck-out to George Michael, at the expense of all of our ears. The question is: Is a giant satellite radio conglomerate the answer?

» Previously: Chuck Leavell: Wrapped Up in Trees

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