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ClearChannel Complains About XM, Sirius Radio
andyring writes "In the latest attempt by a big corporation with a failing business model to win by legislation and not in the marketplace, ClearChannel is whining to the FCC about XM Radio's recent foray into localized traffic and weather reports." Here I was thinking that satellite radio was a good thing for competition in radio.
They are not regulated by the FCC the same way FM and television are. They are in the same boat as HBO.
XM is a partnership between GM and ClearChannel Communications. The suit isn't being brought by Clear Channel, but by the National Association of Broadcasters.
And as for listening to satellite radio, I'll take Sirius anyday. They don't have the annoying Clearchannel DJ's and the "every stations sounds the same" Clearchannel effect (have they patented that yet?).
Yes. ClearChannel already has a stake in XM Satellite Radio, so they're hedging their bets on the new technology.
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... was accused of generating it's own "local" news for many of it's markets? I.E. they didn't have a local news source (online newspaper in the area would probably qualify) so, rather than limiting their news to national coverage, they wrote their own stories with no basis in fact.
Fortunately in the Minneapolis, MN area we do have a reasonably good classic rock station that is not ClrCnl, which has locked out the ClrCnl morning shows. And for local traffic, one of the local Public Broadcast Radio stations provides updates every 10 min during rush hour, and actually has a great Jazz lineup.
ClrChn has attempted to "compete" in the Jazz market with their "Smooth Jazz" channel. I am not what you might call a conisour of Jazz, but I think their playlist is garbage.
I have listened to a couple of XM sat channels, but since I don't own a receiver (yet) I can't make any claims about it.
Radio stations mentioned...
KQRS - http://www.92kqrs.com/ - 92.5 FM
KBEM - http://www.jazz88fm.com/ - 88.5 FM - online
CC-SmoothJazz - 100.5 FM
There are a couple of other locally produced stations in the area. Since I like the Jazz88FM lineup, I have not listened to them.
For those concerned, KQRS is owned by Disney, but the Morning Show should be listened to a few times before you decide to let your kids listen in.
You never know...
To answer your questions, XM is apparently not regulated by the FCC (though that is subject to change at any time since they've got this little power-grab going on), and yes, they could certainly carry the Stern show.
In recent weeks Howard has actually been considering moving the show to XM if/when things hit the fan and he gets yanked from the public airwaves.
I'm just hoping he hangs in there until the election so we can vote that SOB Bush out and see about getting some of our rights back from the corporations and bible-thumpers he so loves.
According to the FCC, there are about 13,000-15,000 radio stations in the US broadcasting at any one time. At last count Clear Channel had 1,176 stations. That is near 10%, not exactly a monopoly. Clear Channel is the biggest single owner, but they are not the only one. Cox, Infinity, Ennis, are all players in this game, and they are part of a lobbying group that asked for this. Clear Channel did not ask for this, the lobbying group did. This is the problem I keep talking about -- people think CC is the only one wrong so they ignore the other people too. Sigh.
and spotty signals when traveling between buildings.
Actually, one of the things that is annoying regular radio broadcasters is that either XM or Serius (can't remember which, or if it was both) got special permission from the FCC to put microrepeaters in buildings in built up areas. (one repeater can cover a fairly large area) This allows people to still recieve even in areas with tall buildings if one of these is arround. The reason the radio broadcasters are annoyed is because the repeaters (being about the size of a desk, and having no external antennas and is installed inside of a building) were allowed to bypass local red tape for installation. AKA they only needed to get federal approval, not local.
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I think the poster was a little confused about that. I remember seeing an article in the NY Times a couple months ago (I tried searching but couldn't find it) about how in the south some christian radio owners are taking advantage of a law that gives high power broadcast station precedence over low power signal relay stations. Many places get NPR only because it is retransmitted through a relay station. The article talked about how this man was on a mission to get rid of NPR and did it by starting radio stations that broadcasted with higher power and therefore got NPR's frequencies. It had nothing to do with ClearChannel.
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You are mostly correct, XM's content is not regulated by the FCC, like over-the-air radio and TV broadcasts are. They are under a looser regulation scheme, like satellite TV. Basically the only thing regulated is what frequencies they're allowed to broadcast on, etc. Content is still 100% up to them though.
"Part of the original license agreement was that theywouldn't offer local content through repeaaters."
but why was that in the original license agreement in the first place? whats wrong with offering local content?
The problem with offering local content is that local content is now the only reason to listen to regular radio over satellite, subscription fees aside. The standard radio stations (including ClearChannel) make their money with advertising revenue, and they can only sell that advertising space if the can guarantee that X number of listeners will hear that ad when it plays. If the satellite companies start giving local news and traffic reports, there will no longer be any reason to not spend the $20 monthly fee: satellite radio has the same music, the same talk shows, no commercials, and now, local information. The AM/FM radio companies are trying to use legislation to preserve their business model. They know that they are losing listeners, and instead of changing their business plan to match the market, they instead use their large legal leverage to bully the competition into not changing the market.
From a third-party point of view, there's nothing wrong with offering local content. From the point of view of the AM/FM media companies, it's forcing them to change, and that's painful. So they try to legislate their way around it.
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