Just in case you missed it the first time around, here’s the rundown: I accidentally clipped the wire going to my satellite radio antenna while doing some work on my car. Yipe. As a result, I’ve been stuck listening to local radio for the past week or so.

Day Two was this past Wednesday, January 18th. Pretty much more of the same — uninteresting songs, mindless drivel, and an excessive spot load. Way too many commercials. One commercial in particular stood out:

“This is a special traffic update. There’s been a major traffic accident on the beltway just outside the city. If you’re heading to work or heading home, you’ll want to pay extra special attention so we can give you directions on how to get past it. Right now traffic is backed up about eight miles in each direction so you definitely don’t want to get caught up in this one. Once again, there’s been a major traffic accident on the beltway just outside the city. This is definitely important information that you don’t want to miss. You should definitely pay attention, and whatever you do, don’t drive on route…” The report stops, and a voice comes on asking you to pay money for the rest of the report. The tagline is blurted out, and it’s revealed that you’re listening to an ad for RADIO of all things. A FREAKING COMMERCIAL FOR FREAKING RADIO.

There are two sides to my response to this. First, this report sounds believable, and that’s bad. Not bad because people might get confused or because it’s deceptive or underhanded in any way (which it is). No — it’s bad because this is the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from radio. We can’t just get the traffic update, we need 90 seconds of fluff padding it on either side. This commercial sounds believable because it sounds terrible.

Second, are local broadcasters feeling such a strong pinch from satellite broadcasters that they’ve been forced to give up precious revenue-generating airtime to defend themselves with a hastily-assembled self-righteous commercial? It looks that way. So far, ten million people have given local radio the collective finger by signing up for satellite radio providers Sirius and XM. Ten million listeners. That’s a lot of people. That’s like shutting off every radio in LA. Or, to hit a bit closer to home, imagine shutting off every single radio in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Carlisle, Lebanon, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, York, Lancaster, Reading, Williamsport, State College, Altoona, Johnstown, Erie, and every town in-between and around (Mechanicsburg, Middletown, Palmyra, Hershey, etc). And you STILL wouldn’t have lost ten million listeners. You’d have to add a market about the size of Daytona Beach to wind up near ten million. Take all those people out of the picture, and you’ll start to get an idea of what satellite radio has done to the radio world.