More radio reports

From FMQB: Bridge Ratings Studies MP3 Players, Satellite Radio:

According to their study, the amount of songs on a person's portable MP3 player varies by the amount of weekly radio listening done. Those who are below-average listeners to radio have more songs on their MP3 players.

Bridge Ratings was also doing listener studies of satellite radio listeners. According to Bridge, XM will end the year "with 8.1 million subscribers and Sirius with 6.5 million."

I've been thinking that these satellite music operations represent an incredibly rich area for academic study. The music librarian in me worries that their logs and playlists will be dumped after a certain amount of time (6 months to a year), but I just don't know. I don't even know if you can call them and find out what was playing. Because they show the song/artist/album on the radios, they must have metadata somewhere.

Unlike classical stations (or even many Web radio stations), they don't post their playlists online. And what sort of cultural treasures in the form of live concert recordings and studio sessions are going on in XM and Sirius studios that aren't being released for sale?! The only way I'll know is to buy one and try it out for myself. Oh well, it's for science. ;-)