I’ve been alternating my listening time the past couple days between my new find, locally-based web radio station Umbrella Radio, and a friend’s Sirius Radio account, specifically the “Outlaw Country” channel.

It’s weird listening to this Outlaw Country station, which is essentially being broadcast from outer space (although I’m listening to it on the web), because they have these DJ’s who provide a bit of commentary here and there in very heavy, almost exaggerated country accents. I’m too much of a Yankee still to know exactly where these accents are supposed to have originated. But it just strikes me as so weird that it’s coming from outer space. Just imagining that there are these country-ish people sitting up at some control room in a satellite talking in thick accents is driving me a little bonkers.

Compare that to a brief snippet I just heard on Umbrella about some art project about Falls Road, which is literally a stone’s throw from my house. I guess I don’t really have any particular conclusions drawn about the whole thing at this point. It’s just the juxtaposition of these two extremes which I’m finding so striking.

Layer into that mix the (fairly) recent announcement of the XM/Sirius satellite radio mergers. The corporate propaganda angle on this monopolistic event is that it’s going to be a real coup for the consumer, because you won’t have to buy two sets of hardware to enjoy all the “excellent programming” being beamed at you from outer space. I like how companies are always trying to tell us that eliminating competition somehow provides us with “more choices”…

In any event, I’m firmly convinced that as this merger goes underway, and the digital switch-over for television signals occurs, that we’re going to see a renaissance of locally-produced media which is actually relevant to the communities it serves, something along the lines of what Garrett used to talk about a lot with regards to “tribal media” and what he’s put into practice with Hollow Earth Radio. It’s either that, or you’ll be sitting there in the future with some robot or actor or computer program in a space station pretending to be “just like you”, while towing some crazy corporate line…