 RAIN 3/18: Sirius founder says satellite radio won't be able to compete with in-car webcasts ·Mar 18, 11:37 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.
share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
She writes (
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, 12:49 PM · #