Grant's Auto Rants

Satellite Radio: The Truth Behind the Tunes

A good friend once told me, "Give a man a fish and he will eat well for day, but teach a man to fish, and he will sit in a boat drinking beer with his friends all weekend." Such is the plight of modern man, and all the increased knowledge and technology in the world doesn't necessarily make us any better off.

As such, this adage can be used to describe the advent and subsequent growth in popularity of satellite radio reception.

While it has been very slow to gain speed, its business model, which is based on the idea of providing technology that's advertising-free, has already been proven to be successful for others. If you've ever watched TV with the aid of TiVo or any other digital recorder, you are well aware that going back to being interrupted by commercials every few minutes is even more painful than viewing pictures online via dial-up.

To be fair, I for one am completely impressed by any appliance (household, automotive, or otherwise) that can actually receive information from outer space. Having said that, I listen to satellite radio everyday at work and can all but guarantee that should you happen to tune in to the 80s station on a Tuesday at 4:44pm EST, you'll hear Nena's "99 Luft Balloons." Same time Wednesday? "Stray Cats Strut."

Now, this fault alone doesn't suggest that there won't come a time when the AM/FM button on your car radio will feel as out of place as a Kenny G fan at a Jay-Z concert. Heavy-hitters Howard Stern and Eminem are pretty much ensuring that with their mega-dollar deals. These old radio frequencies are bound, however, to hang on for a while. The last radio shake-up this big was in 1939 when FM innovator Edwin Armstrong pushed heavily for the radio industry to accept his "new" frequency in the face of strong opposition from AM radio maker, RCA chief David Sarnoff.

While AM and FW have been able to coexist, satellite seems to be the bully on the block, offering digital quality sound and an easy to use category format. Oh yeah, and there is that other thing: whereas once auto manufacturers were willing to throw in a radio for free, satellite will cost you a few hundred bucks in hardware and over $100 per year subscription fees.

True, I would rather set my own head on fire and put it out with a baseball bat than listen to another AUTOMOTIVE SUPERSTORE BLOWOUT SALE ad on the FM frequency. But is it really worth the ten bucks a month? What else am I really getting? The choice of musical genre, you might say. Do we not already have that flexibility from the dozens of AM/FM stations in our respective areas? The satellite companies boast that their customers can better tailor their listening experience to their specific tastes. If that's the case, MP3 players, with their unlimited mix, compilation, and category functions, seem like much more of a threat to satellite radio than AM/FM.

By the way, all of you traditionalist "books on tape" fans need not worry; a few manufacturers still make those cassette things, and you can now download the latest bestseller onto your iPod anyway.

For an interesting angle on Satellite Radio, please see:
http://www.aiada.org/article.asp?id=25544

That New Car Smell

Whether it's putting up silly balloons, miniature carnival rides, or other "exciting" paraphernalia in front of their lots, you can bet that the aim of any automotive retail staff worth their weight in free coffee and doughnuts is to get customers in the door. The reason for this is very simple. Strange things happen to consumers when all of their senses are working overtime to take in a new car's features. This sensory frenzy, which occurs precisely when an unsuspecting consumer is testing the acceleration -- smelling an acute combination of burning rubber and new leather all while being bombarded with all the right answers from a well-versed salesman -- is the real time at which a car is sold.

While some manufacturers and their associated dealers have adopted 24-hour (or even longer) test-drives in an attempt to prolong the attack on consumer senses, I can say with complete certainty that this is a very risky gamble to take. Even a road test in excess of 20 minutes can push that "new car feeling" to its limit. The key to making a sale is to catch the customer while he's still salivating for that next gear.

Let me explain just what I mean. The other day I went into a golf shop unrealistically hoping to find a "demo" or leftover three wood that could be had for a discounted price, knowing full well that the salesman would be cramming the advantages of the latest and greatest club down my throat before I could say "Titleist." I had all of the standard objections at the ready, but when it came down to it, it wasn't the salesman's savvy alone that convinced me to drop the extra hundred bucks on a newer model.

It was that he had a golf net.

Now, there aren't many things in this world less satisfying than hitting golf balls into a net. It's about as rewarding a burnt toast. In automotive terms, it's the equivalent of finally convincing your better-half to let you buy a Ferrari, rushing into the dealership for the test drive, starting the engine, blipping the throttle a few times…then staying put in the lot.

What the golf club salesman had done was implement a very sneaky and effective sensory swap. By letting me hear the smack of the ball against the club, I was immediately transported. In a trance, I suddenly no longer possessed the ability to say "no" and I had the curious reflex of handing over my wallet to whoever would have it.

In the hopes of cashing in on this same excitement, car manufacturers now employ "hapticians" (touch specialists), "audiologists," and other sensory experts to stimulate would-be owners in countless ways. They make it virtually impossible for consumers to resist.

The presence of that new car smell, incidentally, is no accident. Apparently, the olfactory sense is of particular importance because its physical location in the brain is linked closest to memory. Coming up with an aroma that appeals to the masses and their varying tastes, however, is rather difficult. A friend once told me that a good cigar should smell as if you have just pulled it from a horse's backside. Think about that the next time you sink down into the cozy leather confines of that new BMW at your local dealership.