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Dave's Top Eight
1. Jerry Reed...Revisited by Darrell Toney (reviewed 6/07) (5 Stars) Click title to purchase at CBD.com...click artist name to read Dave's Review. A CD will automatically fall out of the Top Eight after twelve months if no CD surpasses it before then.
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Most Recent Articles
Why blog? (Three years and counting)
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-----------March 21, 2007XM Special on Legacy Five, BennettI don't normally post on the blog much about upcoming shows of Daniel Britt & Friends on XM (really because you have several other places where you can keep up with that: the schedule page, the newsletter, or enlighten34). However, there is a unique spotlight coming up that I thought you should know about. Before Roger Bennett passed away on the 17th, we had plans already in place, and the broadcast fully produced, to air a special on Legacy Five the week of 3/26/07. Now that Roger has passed, this interview and L5 spotlight will be even timelier. This is one of Roger's last interviews, recorded during NQC week 2006, just following the news of his leukemia relapse. There's a lot of conversation with Roger in this special where he talks very candidly about his health struggles and some hard places where he has walked. You will notice a tribute to Roger just before the produced broadcast airs. This edition of the program will last over an hour. Here's the official synopsis of next week's show: Coming up on the next Daniel Britt & Friends: In the quartet world of gospel singing, a group of FIVE guys may seem to be a quandary. Not so when talking about Legacy Five! This "quartet," with their talented pianist Roger Bennett, carries on a legacy the spans generations. You have the invitation to hear their music and share stories of their individual lives coming up. We've got them all sitting around our table with a place set for you, too. Glenn, Frank, the two Scotts and the one and only Roger are here for the hour. With the passing of Roger earlier this month, this interview provides one of the final opportunities for listeners to hear directly from his heart. It was recorded in September 2006, just a matter of days after Roger's reoccurrence of leukemia and he talked with us about that current situation he faced. In addition to the special hour-long highlight on Legacy Five, we also begin the program with a tribute to Roger Bennett. This is certainly a program worth holding out for and it's coming soon on Daniel Britt & Friends. Daniel Britt & Friends is heard each week on XM Satellite Radio's enLighten 34 - Mondays at 7PM ET, Thursdays at 10PM ET, and Saturdays at 12 Noon ET. You can also hear it online at xmradio.com, at AOL Radio, or with DirecTV on channel 828. After the broadcast, you can download the extended interview from www.danielbritt.com -Daniel Britt Labels: Announcements, Interviews, Obituary, XM News March 13, 2007Southern Gospel launches in CanadaThis link announces the addition of XM's Southern Gospel radio channel, enLighten, to the satellite radio menu in Canada via XM Canada (www.xmradio.ca). This announcement also means that the weekly release of "Daniel Britt & Friends" will now be heard throughout all of North America. Expect these changes to take effect April 1, 2007. Welcome, Canadians! -Daniel Britt Labels: Announcements, In The News, XM News February 23, 2007Marlin Taylor And DBM Discuss The XM/Sirius MergerAfter reading what Marlin Taylor of XM's enLighten Southern Gospel channel had posted about the XM/Sirius merger on enLighten's website, I posed a couple of questions to him directly. Taylor was gracious enough to respond promptly. You can read the full statement that prompted my questions HERE. DBM: A couple of your statements seemed to contradict each other. At one point you mention that customers might need new receivers in order to get the full combined services of both XM and Sirius. At another point you mention XM and Sirius merging their channel lineups. Will XM and Sirius merge their channel lineup, and if so, why would a new receiver be necessary? Marlin Taylor: I’ll attempt to answer this without getting too technical or overly detailed. There are two limiting factors right off in any combining of the two companies’ systems: First, they operate with two very different transmission systems, which complicates the design of a receiver which can pick up both, let alone having current radios for either service receive the other’s programming. Secondly, both systems are max’d out, so they cannot be expanded to include channels from the other company’s lineup. For instance, for the merged company to deliver Sirius’ NFL broadcasts, something would need to be bumped, the same would be the case if enLighten were to be made available to Sirius subscribers. This limited availability of “bandwidth” allocated to each company by the FCC is what caused so much time to pass before Southern Gospel was added to XM’s satellite lineup – another format had to bumped. What the press release was trying to say was that existing receivers would not be made obsolete … they still will be able to receive the channels which their present service continues to deliver. At some point, when the companies’ decide to merge their lineup – meaning that where programming is presently duplicated by both parties … mostly in the Country and rock arenas and some news/talk channels like Fox News, CNN (examples only, nothing been determined) … is eliminated, a person’s favorite channel may land on the “other side” of the combined service. DBM: You quoted some statistics regarding the popularity of enLighten vs. other XM channels, the number of enLighten listeners, the amount of time a listener tunes in vs. switching channels, etc. These stats all sounded very encouraging in terms of enLighten surviving the merger, but I wonder how you arrived at those stats. How does XM know, for example, that Customer A listens to enLighten for two hours before switching over to Laugh USA for 30 minutes while Customer B never takes his radio off of enLighten? Marlin Taylor: These are legitimate figures provided to XM management by two different research organizations, one being Arbitron, which is the accepted audience ratings service for all of American radio. These two companies survey the XM body of subscribers to determine what they are listening to. The first Arbitron survey following enLighten’s arrival on the satellite service on April 18th came in late June. This report told us that the enLighten audience was geared up and waiting for it, as it showed the channel as already being in the top 20% of XM’s most-listened-to channels … this just 60 days following launch. The latest Arbitron survey showed only a small increase in audience size, but confirmed that the June numbers were not a fluke … and all of this is confirmed by data from the other research company, whose name I do not know. A key factor is that XM management has now proclaimed enLighten to be a great success story. One further point …I am amazed at the number of groups who have reported being told numerous times that their recordings have been heard on enLighten and are seeing increased CD sales due to this exposure. Mind you, these are lesser-known groups who’s recordings are only occasionally played. At the NQC, someone told me that “in the five months since enLighten went on the satellite service,” this group (I have no idea who it was) has sold more CD’s than total sales of the previous five years! Labels: XM News February 22, 2007Southern Gospel Satellite SurvivalenLighten 34 has been available as a 24 hour, solid Southern Gospel formatted channel on XM Satellite Radio now for nearly a year. enLighten program director Marlin Taylor answered a few questions about the merger and how it will affect the Southern Gospel fans at this link. A few key quotes from Marlin worth underlining: Q: What will happen to enLighten, is it likely to go away? A: Absolutely not! I am pleased to report that in listenership, enLighten ranks in the top one-fifth of all of XM’s 170 channels ... with more than a half-million persons tuning in every week! And, many of “our family” are listening for long hours most every day. This makes the enLighten body of listeners a serious segment of the total XM subscribership … and management recognizes that a goodly number of you listen to little else in the XM lineup. Add to this the fact that Sirius has no counter-part to enLighten or anything remotely close to it. ... While I cannot speak for corporate management, it is my confirmed belief that the biggest change you, the enLighten listener, might encounter sometime in the years down the road is a change in channel number, which could occur at the point when the two channel lineups are melded into one. Bottom line: I see absolutely nothing for anyone to be concerned about regarding the future of enLighten. Another piece of good news is that, just within the past few days, senior management has acknowledged that – even though many of you have been begging for this channel for years – enLighten 34 is a major XM success story! Hallelujah and praise the Lord! -Daniel Britt Labels: In The News, XM News February 20, 2007XM To Merge With SiriusHere's a more detailed reaction to the announced XM and Sirius satellite radio merger. They actually use this line in their press release: "The combined company will be able to compete better in what has become a very complex and dynamic entertainment market." Translation: They never were in competition in the first place...more on this below. It sure is a "complex market" when the choice changes from just two to only one. Here's another mind boggling statement from the press release: "...once we are fully integrated, those of you who have factory-installed satellite radio will no longer be limited to the programming provided by the exclusive satellite radio service chosen by their car manufacturer." What does this mean? You can get both services on the same receiver after the merger...of course, this should have been the case all along, but before the companies merged, they cooperated to create the illusion that they were in competition...with identical business models and no one making a receiver that would get both services. Now we learn it was all a facade. Here's one more line from the press release: "Between today and the merger date, as well as during the period immediately after the merger date, all of your services will remain the same. The channel lineup, the customer service number, the great music technology, and the XM Radio web site will all remain unchanged and there will be no disruption to service." What they've just done here (in reverse sneaky press release fashion) is list what might or will change AFTER the merger date. They even throw in a promise they can't possibly guarantee..."there will be no disruption to service." I have a disruption to service every time I drive beside a row of buildings or just a large stand of Virginia pine trees. A few questions arise out of all of this. 1. For Southern Gospel fans, will Channel 34 survive the merger? 2. How many people have XM and Sirius ripped off by selling proprietary hardware that turns out not to be proprietary after all? We should have been offered the option of switching from XM to Sirius and back again without changing hardware from day one. 3. Who is going to offer a competing product now? If the new corporate entity wants to scale back service gradually over time on the XM side and do the same on the Sirius side, there's no incentive to switch. Labels: XM News XM To Merge With SiriusI just learned that XM is merging with Sirius to become the only choice for satellite radio. A 50% monopoly on coast-to-coast radio coverage wasn't enough for each company? How do deals like this get past the FTC? Tune in for more analysis on this subject later. Labels: XM News 
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