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I remember seeing a documentary once that hypothesized that Earth is a real anomaly due to a number of necessary things ranging from the time of the planets formation to the fact that you need a large moon to keep the planet from becoming inhospitable every few years (and thus giving life the time it needs to form).
But the biggest issue with contacting of life forms had more to do with the fact that, according to these scientists, the evolution required to form the intelligence needed to do the things required to contact others also would invariably lead to the extinction of said intelligence. So in addition to needing a very specific environment you also need to time everything just right so that split-second life capable of communicating out into the stars exists it has someone else out there on the receiving end at that same split-second.
The example they gave was Earth itself: if aliens contacted Earth every day for the 60 million years dinos were around they'd get nothing but static in return. We're faced with the same challenge. And chances are the civilizations capable of doing this will only have thousands (not millions) of years to try once they're evolved enough to have the technology and cultural interest to attempt such an effort.
For someone like me who would love us to find an alien signal in space it was all rather depressing...
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