How Podcasting and Satellite Changed Radio

prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine discusses how podcasting changes the radio industry: "Consider the basics: With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They're bypassing an entire industry." The article notes about some advertising deals that podcasters managed to procure, but it also notes that another industry, satellite radio, represented by Sirius and XM Satellite radio, is already changing the radio landscape."

Comments

All this hype about 'podcasting'

[fwice]

There is all this hype about podcasting but nothing about shoutcasting or other forms of internet radio -- which have been aroudn longer and have more than quite a bit of a userbase...

Podcasting?

[NeuralAbyss]

....am I the only one who's had absolutely no experience, nor been affected by either podcasting or satellite radio? I'm tempted to just write it off as a fad... who'd spend time downloading a multi-hour 'podcasting' program just to play later?

I personally would much rather go for a personal selection of mp3s.

Radio's Advatages Over Podcasting

[reallocate]

To me, the advantage of radio is that stations exist that broadcast programming in specific formats. I can tune into these stations anytime and listen to programming that I enjoy.

For example, 3 FM stations exists within 25 miles of me that have 24/7 jazz formats. I'm a jazz fan, so that makes me happy.

I'm not aware of any podcast sources that provide comparable services. Podcasts require that I go out and find digital files I want and then set them up for play. I don't have the time to do that to build up a podcast playlist as lengthy as the one I can get just be turning on my radio.

There's no reason why someone couldn't hire a staff, pay them to create and collect podcasts and then broadcast them over AM or FM on a 24/7 format, but that would be very much the same as radio anyway.

Inveitable

[luckytroll]

I stopped listening to radio a long time ago - my MP3-cd player for the car was the best money I ever spent. Aside from our commercial-free public radio (CBC) I have only occasionall listened to commercial radio, and was driven off by the advertising within a few minutes. The only thing that is missing from my de-commercialized listening experience is a way to inject new music and news into the stream of music I have chosen so as to keep it fresh.

So - why not broadcast cue information about which stations are playing what so my (yet to be invented) intelligent radio/player can dash seamlessly between stations and canned tracks whilst avoiding the blaring Ads with tivo-like grace. We do it with the remote on television to avoid the chaff, why not with radio?

Re:Satellite will kill off AM/FM

[velo_mike]

Satellite's subscription model will make AM/FM's advertising system obsolete. The majority would rather pay for no/few commercials than music that's interupted after 5 songs or talk shows that need breaks every 10 minutes. Opie and Anthony on XM do a four hour show with almost no breaks, and it's taken off so well XM is using them to compete against $500 Stern.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the allure of Cable TV when it was introduced in the late 70's? I've never been much into TV, and didn't get cable til I hit my mid 30's, but I seem to remember that a lack of commercials was part of what you paid for.

Re:Satellite will kill off AM/FM

[HFXPro]

It was... and now look at it today. Commercials all over the place and even a lot of dedicated commercial tv stations (Home Shopping Network or whatever its called). As much as I hate most radio, if people switch to Satellite I only see it becoming worse and satellite becoming just as bad.