Here's the deal. The SIRIUS Canada service costs $14.99 per month and for that you get 100 commercial free stations; 60 of which are music while the other 40 are of news, talk and sports like the NHL. Ten are Canadian music and information stations made available nationally in both English and French. Structurally, SIRIUS Canada is a partnership of CBC/Radio Canada, Standard Radio Inc and SIRIUS Satellite Radio (U.S.).
The gang at SIRIUS arranged for me to try out a demo Starmate model, a 10 cm x 2.5 cm unit that slips into a swivel like arm that in turn "suction cups" to the inside of your auto's windshield. A pair of thin rubber cables, for power and connectivity to your auto's built in radio, run from the Starmate and into the dashboard.
I'm sure Mr. Michetti liked his demo, and playing with the new gizmo, and satellite radio was a good idea, about 5 years ago. The reality now though, as I see it, is that the window for Satellite radio is closing fast. Soon, very, very soon - anything available online, and much that isn't available online yet will be available to anyone, anywhere, on their pda, cell phone, iPod, laptop or, of course, desktop. People will be able to listen to literally thousands of radio stations across the world, a small (very small) sampling of them are available on this site, and there are about 10,000 available here, even on publicbroadcasting.ca there are over 120 public, university and community radio stations listed. Then, add to this all of the available podcasts and now vidcasts, and the fact that TV will soon be as available as radio online (there are a few thousand feeds here already) and then peoples private collection of music and video plus, of course, video games, email, web sites, text messaging, phone calls...
Once all of this is available to you whereever you are, on virtually any device, largely for free (or for the cost of your cell/internet connection, who exactly is going to be paying "$14.99 per month" for "100 commercial free stations" on a separate, proprietary, device that doesn't do anything else?
I'm sure there are a few out there, Mr. Michetti and other tech columnists for example, or people who just like technology and want everything on the market, perhaps a handful of people who don't understand the internet, cell phones, iPods etc and just want something that plays music - but is this going to be enough of a market to sustain a company and all of the stations that company represents?
4 comments:
Justin, this now ancient article on the future of radio may be of interest:
http://www.carf.ca/members/243_news/243_1.html
xutak
Thanks for the article xutak.
Philly, I'm not saying it's not good, or that you shouldn't get it. All I'm saying is that better things are coming and according to the people at MIT it should be available in remote regions of the Andes - so if you have cell phones and satellite radio where you are it will be available to you too. I think sat. radio will enjoy some initial success but it will peak in a few years and then start to dwindle as much more impressive and less expensive technology comes on line.
hmm funny about satelite - I have the same impression of uninterest. I find those sorts of services tend to provide oodles of uninteresting stuff, and they have the big problem that you have with regular radio: you are constrained by what they're piping at a particular time (though I guess TiVo for SIRIUS is on the way? I hope so).
What's so exciting about podcasting -- if philly can get her bandwidth -- is that you can listen to what you want when you want. and the choices are not 100s of channels, but millions.
for now anyway free. we'll see what comes down the pipe but I can't see how anyone who charges for podcasts will survive, but I may be wrong on that.
You may, and you may not. If I paid for television by the show I would pay significantly less than I do for cable. Podcasters can probably get away with micropayments without too much backlash - especially if you explained it as an optional donation so that you didn't have to rely on advertising. Even if most people download without paying it could still be a significant chunk of change for a successful podcast.
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