My search for desi music on radio led me to invest in XM satellite radio. Previously, I never drove that much and for the short drives between home and work, I had enough music on CDs to get by. But now that I moved and am driving more, it was time to get more venues of entertainment or so I thought. To me there was no difference between XM and Sirius in terms of the kind of programming I prefer but XM has a desi music station, so I decided to go with XM.

My first impressions on the desi music stations on XM, channel 159 ATN Asian Radio, is that its still years away from being a semi-decent satellite radio station. Right now channel 159 has about 2 major shows they play over and over again, or at least it seems that way – Bollywood Bonanza and Desi Mix. My biggest peeve is their morning programming. As I’m on my way to work I’ve to skip this channel entirely because they play Bhajans and other devotional music. I can’t speak for all desis but devotional music on my way to work is not a selling point to me. Perhaps XM Channel 159 caters to an older crowd, perhaps they did not do their market research and went with the lowest common denominator. Either way, 7:30am-9am is prime time for radio because most people are probably on their way to work during this time period. A morning news or current affairs show would be a greater fit for this segment.

The best feature I like about satellite radio is when a song is playing the receiver unit displays the name of the song and the artist. No such luck with channel 159. All you see is the name of the show – “Bollywood Bonanza” or “Desi Mix”, which, pardon my French, blows, because it won’t let me set a song as a preselected favorite.

Bollywood Bonanza is primarily recent Bollywood movies numbers and Desi Mix is Indi-Pop and remix numbers, not that there is often a major difference between the two. Bollywood Bonanza also features interviews with Bollywood celebrities, often featuring mind numbing statements like “You look fit now, earlier you had put on some weight” “Ya ya, I’ve been working out”. Desi Mix features an interactive call-in radio show which is perhaps the most entertaining part of channel 159. The most amusing callers are the ones who harp endlessly on “Indian culture and traditions” irrespective of the topic being discussed. Until listening to these delusional folks, I was under the impression that harping on “Indian culture” was the prerogative of middle aged uncles from a Hindu background. After listening to this segment, all such misconceptions on age, sex and religion have been cleared. But I digress.

Other shows include Ghazals, Oldies and Regional Languages. I’ve not had the opportunity to peruse the first two largely because of their weird scheduling and not being big on regional language music, I pretty much skip over that show.

To sum it up, the new desi channel on satellite radio is ….. a fledgling radio station. Their programming needs some serious upgrading to be at the level of a satellite radio station and to appeal to a wider variety of audiences. Talk shows, news, current affairs, finance, sports (cricket, in particular, preferably live) are some of the things that would fit in well should they choose to upgrade. Being the first South Asian channel on satellite radio, they have the potential to draw a sizable audience, maybe they already are. But that audience certainly deserves better, translation we don’t need a clone of All India Radio. Right now, the programming is strictly quantity over quality. We deserve better.

Any of our readers listen to this station on XM? Thoughts? Opinions? Any information you want to add?

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