AJC.com: Interesting take on the Dixie Chicks

Dixie Chicks fly above waves--Jon Sinton, Air America's creator, opines on what's happening in radio, as evidenced by the Dixie Chicks brouhaha: "In its continuing effort to not offend listeners or advertisers, terrestrial radio threw the Dixie Chicks to the curb after Natalie Maines' onstage remarks in 2003 were seen as intemperate. Or maybe they got that treatment because radio executives, listening to all that hype on their right-wing talk stations, actually believed that dissent is unpatriotic and decided it was their job to punish Natalie and her co-conspirator Chicks by boycotting their work. Either way, terrestrial radio is still allergic to the Dixie Chicks, even though their new album debuted this week at No. 1 on Nielsen SoundScan — the record industry's retail tracker — tops the charts at Amazon and is the most-downloaded album on iTunes.

Predictably, you can hear it often on both satellite radio services. I worry about the earthbound stations and their stodgy stewards who by playing it safe may inadvertently hasten the evolution from terrestrial music stations to satellite and ultimately wireless broadband Internet.

The history of the medium is that audience migrates to the service that satisfies them. All the Dixie Chicks wanted to do was express an opinion. They may have started a revolution."