Life after Worldspace

Its been more than a year since Worldspace was taken off. Throughout the world,worldspace was probably the best satellite radio station one could have ever come across. And a major source of in-store music for retailers.

Musicworld, Big Apple retails, Cafe Coffee Day, Barista, Pizza Hut to name a few chains which were quite affected by this take-off. Stacking a big collection of lisenced music was a big issue. Excessive initial costs,someone there all the time to monitor playlists,change the disks and more maintenance work.

I still remember a couple of years back. At home,whenever i felt like listening to music,i used to choose the worldspace stations(whose name i can hardly remember now) on my Airtel DigitalTV. From Jazz,Rock to pop - every genre had a seperate station. Sad its a thing of the past.

Now,whenever i try catching upto some music, all i can listen to is some dum RJ playing "River of Dreams" or worse "Always a woman to me". Those old days were still much better. Atleast out of competition, the only international FM music channel Hit95Fm used to play some realty good numbers. And now, i listen to Fireball by Bob Sinclair(which is playing right now). Way unheard music is being played. Big names like Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz, 50Cent are missing, and replacing them are Rod Stewart,Tina Turner and the likes(bah...oldies). On a lucky day,i'd get to hear Flo Rida.

I had VH1 too, but 'cheat' Airtel guys took it off on taking a year long advance subscription,claiming that this channel is now removed in the new package, and i'd have to pay 40 bucks to get it. Even they know that its the only channel guys have in India to catch international music,with MTV and Channel V emphasising on the local audience centred media.

Worldspace,which initially originated in Africa, had affected a lot of people worldwide. It became the only satellite radio operator in India, and enjoyed a good fan-following here. Worldspace's growth in India was tremendous, and was still growing. Infact,when it shut down, Worldspace had one of the biggest audience bases here. But surprisingly,after its takeover,the new company didn't bother about India - the biggest customer base fr them. Pity they missed out on such a big audience, and India missed out on its only good old satellite radio player. I can still see the big Toshiba satellite radio reciever at a nearby Cafe Coffee Day store, but its now used for playing CD's(poor manager,CD's in age of Blu Ray's).

So here it is. A toast in the memory of Worldspace. An unsaid Aideu to you