 RAIN 3/18: Sirius founder says satellite radio won't be able to compete with in-car webcasts ·Mar 18, 10:37 AM SATELLITE RADIO’S IDEAL TIME WAS “10 YEARS AGO”Sirius Radio founder Martine Rothblatt, in an interview with Fortune Magazine (here), predicted that Sirius XM won’t be able to compete with Internet radio once the medium expands to cars and other devices. “There’s going to be ever more bandwidth available to distribute content totally via terrestrial cellular infrastructure. And that will leave fewer and fewer unique market attributes to satellite radio,” she said. “Technologies have their ideal times and places, and in my opinion the better time for satellite radio was 10 years ago.”
Not surprisingly, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin disagrees, claiming satellite radio will be able to compete with Internet radio because of exclusive content, like Howard Stern and CNN. MORE MIXED REACTIONS TO JERRY LEE’S STREAMING TAKE-DOWN“On one level I was pleased to read about Jerry Lee’s decision to protest the draconian royalty rates from SoundExchange,” said Triton Media COO Mike Agovino in regards to Lee’s removal of Philadelphia WBEB’s online stream Sunday (RAIN coverage here). “However, I have to question his form of protest. At a time when streaming radio is becoming an increasingly viable business for radio, Jerry’s timing and methods couldn’t be worse.”
Further reaction came from Jennifer Lane (pictured right), who points out in her Audio4cast blog that WBEB could better swallow SoundExchange’s high royalties if they hadn’t pursued the “flawed strategy” of streaming “the broadcast station in its entirety rather than sell different ads online.” Tom Taylor sees a different angle in Lee’s move however, musing that perhaps Lee is protesting SoundExchange’s rates and hoping other broadcasters will join him. “Jerry seems to be willing to draw a line in the sand, before the new SoundExchange rates are no longer ‘new’ and before they’re simply the status quo. Lots of folks think the new rate structure is too expensive over the long run. Will anybody else join Jerry Lee on the other side of the line?” RAIN publisher Kurt Hanson outlined his thoughts on the WBEB streaming removal in his blog. Read it here, and post your own thoughts in our comment section below! PANDORA COMES TO BLACKBERRYPandora has (finally) launched a Blackberry application. Available for BlackBerry Bold, Curve 8310, 8320, and 8330, Pearl 8100, 8120, and 8130 smartphones, the application is available for free at Pandora’s website. For more, check out Mobile Burn’s coverage here.
RADIOTIME CHANNEL AGGREGATES LIVE SXSW CONTENTA RadioTime channel built by Scott Fleischer aggregates live broadcasts from this year’s SXSW festival in Austin. Whenever KUT, KGSR, East Village Radio, WOXY, KCRW, or KEXP broadcasts content from the festival, it will appear on the channel and users can tune in to listen live. The “one stop” destination should save some time otherwise spent surfing in-between the individual stations’ websites. Check out the RadioTime channel here.
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Comment Other stories RAIN 9/2: Apple makes iTunes experience more social, more "radio-like" RAIN 9/1: FilterMusic.net excels at helping you discover new streams RAIN 8/31: Pandora's Les Hollander to speak at RAIN Summit East RAIN 8/30: Former Forrester analyst to deliver second keynote of RAIN Summit East RAIN 8/27: Radio vet Bill Gamble to consult AccuRadio's country stations RAIN 8/26: Clear Channel's digital chief Evan Harrison to leave at end of year RAIN 8/25: Pandora spotlights improved "genre-based" listening options RAIN 8/24: NAB presents details of proposed royalty settlement to members RAIN 8/23: Mobile media growth will even outpace Internet, predicts Nielsen RAIN 8/20: New deadline for Internet Radio Awards is August 31 |
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I don’t feel that Jennifer Lane did not acknowledge nor perhaps understands the Arbitron dilemma when running separate ads on a station’s stream.
That said, it is awfully expensive for broadcasters and webcasters alike to promote the sale of music.
— Dan Kelley · Mar 18, 11:49 AM · #
While I applaud the work that Jennifer Lane, Mike Agovino and others have done, they seem oblivious to the fact that you can’t lose $.05 on every sale and make it up in volume. The truth is that there is no such thing as an online strategy that can turn a profit given the royalty structure.
When a business’ fixed costs are higher than best case scenario revenue possibilities, the business should shut down.
Yes, radio’s only hope for the future is streaming, but as long as the cost of doing it is higher than the revenue potential, this hope is purely theoretical and not actionable.
Let’s remember something about Jerry Lee – he’s not afraid to step out and spend money where others won’t. He probably spends as much on research as the rest of the Philly market and will test spots for advertisers for free. If he’s running away from streaming because of the rates, the rest of the industry who, conversely has limited their entire strategy to firing people, should take notice.
The push back on the current streaming royalty structure is way more important than the one involving terrestrial radio. One represents the future, the other the past. It seems that the curators of the past are denying radio’s future by picking the wrong fight.
— Bob Bellin · Mar 18, 12:45 PM · #
While I sympathize with Mr. Bellin’s viewpoint (see above), frankly I’m not convinced that SoundExchange (or anybody else for that matter) will renegotiate a deal with anyone even if all of the webcasters (including broadcasters) leave the Internet.
There are two reasons for this: (1) artists and musicians still believe they are not getting enough revenues from streaming services (remember, there are more artists and musicians out there than webcasters); and (2) I am very convinced that the recording industry believes that if all webcasts are discontinued, people will return to buying their music from stores on CDs (though maybe everybody should stop webcasting—to prove the music industry wrong).
— ted chittenden · Mar 18, 07:44 PM · #
I agree completely with Ted. The music industry would send us all back to 1993 if they could – and they think that killing streaming is a step in that direction.
But that doesn’t mean that radio should add a money loser that’s guaranteed to lose progressively more money to it’s ever worsening balance sheet.
Bottom line: terrestrial listeners are profitable, streamies are not – and the escalating rate structure etches increasing losses in stone. Why deliberately migrate black ink into red? Remember, I’m not some nub who needs to ask his kids how to attach files and I’ve been a big booster of webcasting from the start.
What banker will support the accompanying balance sheet? A subprime mortgage probably brings better profitability odds.
Reme
— Bob Bellin · Mar 19, 06:45 AM · #
I really appreciate your time! Thanks a lot.
— Term Papers · Aug 13, 05:02 AM · #