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NPR Finds XM's Achilles Heel
PreacherTom writes "In the ongoing radio wars, one only has to listen to 20 seconds of Howard Stern's language to know that the lack of regulation gives satellite radio a distinct advantage. Of all the challengers, it seems that NPR has finally found a weakness in XM, which supplements its satellite coverage with earth-bound transmitters. A recent test found that 19 of these transmitters were unlicensed and another 221 exceeded their authorized power level, giving NPR an opening to press with an apparently sympathetic FCC. It certainly doesn't help that XM's own filings support their case."
XM is cool -- I tried it out for a few months and actually found myself listening to the radio for the first time in a long time. That ended when the lady of the house gave me her old iPod, which is now my primary listening device. I download a ton of independent music, go to a lot of shows, and also produce a few bands so I get demos all the time. A few podcasts make their way to the little device, and I'm happier for it. I'm 32, but it seems that most teenagers don't even know what a radio is, except for 88.7 FM or whatever station their FM transmitter for their iPod uses.
I think radio technology is old and dated, and I can't really see a future for it. I've been calling for the FCC to deregulate (or lessen regulations) on the old analog TV channels -- and it looks like others have too because the FCC is doing just that. Setting up large chunks of bandwidth for broadcasting is ridiculous, it would be like setting up large chunks of the Internet for one-way non-interactive websites. The future is about a la carte selections, narrowcasting, custom playlists, whatever. The future is not massive 50,000 watt transmitters hitting the numb masses, but about individuals selecting what they want.
I think the future is either WiFi-based communications, or EDGE-network communications. I already stream my music from my home server to my PDA via EDGE (HP PDA with Bluetooth dialup to my cell phone). It works great and I have instant access to gigs of music (and limited video).
I realize that I am in the minority here, but everyone who checks out my system loves it and asks how they can do it. For now, they can't do it easily, but I don't expect that to last as more cell phone companies embrace wireless access for the web. For now it will stay proprietary (t-zones, vCast, etc), but give it time and as more bandwidth is deregulated, more people will jump on the narrowcast system. I even download a podcast of a few bands that put an hour playlist together, and it is perfect for my drive. Interactive real-time broadcasts aren't that interesting to me.
The short future will be both local and satellite radio stations bashing each other over legal infractions, and that's fine -- let them spend their money on lawyers and lobbying Congress for more power over the airwaves. That future is only good for a little while, though. Right now people love the web over TV because they demand what they want, and someone supplies it RIGHT NOW. As the TV becomes more copyprotected, more people will demand more of the web, and suppliers will meet their needs.
As wireless connectivity reaches more of the masses, and becomes easier to use, and becomes faster, the days of broadcasting (TV, radio, newspaper, etc) will fall away, left as a memory to what the previous generation did. How antiquated. How cute.
Sidenote: Funny how radio can not compete in the same way as XM because of the FCC. The FCC was created to support big radio conglomerates and keep out little competitors. They're still using the FCC to keep their monopoly, without realizing they're leaking customers like a sieve.
If the signal is encrypted, and you have to PAY to receive and decrypt the signal, so what if it is filthy language? Who cares where the signal originates?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
First!
I have to pay for it and it still doesn't have anything worth listening too unless you care about sports or shock jocks.
Granted, it's not really XM's fault that 98.3% of all music created today is rehashed, overproduced, halfwit crap, but still, you can't beat an MP3 player and your own collection. When somebody starts up a radio station that lets me pick the songs I want to listen to, we'll see about it.
That means a driver listening to NPR might suddenly hear a blast of obscenities from Howard Stern
...found that 30% to 40% of the modulators exceeded FCC-mandated power levels
What is that might "frog with wings".
NPR LABS
So I'll have problems listening to FM 87.8? And why is public broadcasting using public funds to research FM modulators. I don't want donate to that research.
couldn't conclusively determine whether satellite radio devices or, say, unrelated MP3 players
Ahh, evil MP3s reminiscent of that napster doom and gloom.
If there is a problem, XM and Sirus will fix it. If not, you won't get sympathy from the public because your content is censored and people want to hear "free" (as in beer or something?) broadcast. Think of the Children - FUD only works with the uneducated.
Are the editors just lazy or do they really somehow believe that XM's faulty transmitters affect my online rights?
It seems like a technical glitch to me that XM will just have to fix, and redeploy. What's the rights issue here?
This breach of rules for terrestrial radio stations surely infringes on my rights online.
burn them!
I could [censored] that he was on Sirius.
This is what NPR is doing with its money? They couldn't just focus on broadcasting something other than bluegrass when the news isn't on? At least now I have another reason to not feel bad for never calling in during pledge week.
I'd sure like to see the FCC release a bunch of these frequencies back to the public. Didn't we already pay for them? Also, I am definately sure that most licensed broadcasters bend the rules a little, whether it is to up the signal power, or even to release noise into nearby bands. How can we get the FCC to audit their licensees? Are we not complaining loud enough?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
(really, why now?)
well i wanted XM until i found out they didn't have NPR, and so i'd have to go to Sirius instead. but this makes me guess that there's some bad tension between XM and NPR, obviously... maybe XM wouldn't allow NPR to broadcast on their service?
I use Sirius all the time, and I can always find something worth listening to. I listen to FIND new things/people/groups to listen to, I don't have enough storage to tote all the MP3's I might want around, and I carry 10 DVD's worth of stuff now.
That, and finding DJ Tiesto at 3am in the middle of Alabama lets me make to the hotel in one piece.
It's just better radio. For people who spend too much time in the car, it's a bargain.
Radio is the single worst form of distribution of modern times. Between mouthy DJs, repetitive and annoying advertisement and frankly awful music, dragged out from some record label's production lines, I can't stand the radio. Personal opinion of course. All of the functions radio used to occupy have been replaced by better media. The music's always the latest offering from old news and it's repetitive. Same songs all the time. Digital radio is hardly any better. I prefer to just rip my mates' CD collections. A couple of mp3 discs and I'm happy for hours. If I really like an album I'll go out and buy it. I don't want to hear normal releases because they're never representative of the whole album. One or two singles playing over and over is enough to put me off the band/DJ forever! I used to like The Offspring, until Pretty Fly was overplayed.
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
The article says that NPR is filing a complaint with the FCC due to non-compliance by satellite radio broadcasters and devices. That's a perfectly reasonably thing to do. But both the article and Slashot summary imply that NPR has an axe to grind against Satellite radio. Is there some NPR -vs- satellite radio thing going on that I don't know about? It seems like that is pre-requisite knowledge for understanding this article.
It wasn't enough that they bored us to death with their crappy programming. Of course, you could never actually listen to their crappy programming, since it was all commercials, all the time. And you could never get the IQ85 disk jockies to shut up, either.
So, we voted with our wallets, and chose to pay for something decent instead of shoveling down the free crap they offered us. Now, they're mad, cause we don't want what their peddling. So what do they do when they're beaten in the market place? Sue, of course!
Unreal. Who bothers to listen to broadcast radio anymore? It's unlistenable.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
if XM uses a few frequncies that they shouldn't and the ones that they should the boost the power I don't see any harm in that
*Twitch* this brought to you by Mountain Dew *Twitch*
I mean really come on.
Don't you hate glorious self-promotion? Visit my Blog
NPR stations tend to be located in the same end of the FM band that the FM modulators operate in, so you can see why they would feel put out: Satellite radio is stealing their listeners and kicking them in the shins. Siphoning off listeners is just business, but keying on the same stations (even if it's not intentional) is worth complaining about.
You can't blame someone for complaining about another party unjustly interfering with their business. You can't "just focus on broadcasting" if you're being jammed.
I am not a crackpot.
So many of my hippie friends think NPR is the "anti government" radio but this act by NPR to try to bring XM down in interest of their (NPR's) profit just demonstrates that NPR is as evil as the rest of corporate radio and will jump into bed with government to reduce our freedoms.
Of course it's not just satellite radio it's ipods too. Since NPR stations are about the only thing worth listening to locally (and WFMU is on 91.1 too, for NY/NJ people) it's frustrating having the crap that people listen to on their ipods interrupt me.
NPR also helped kill off low power fm. I haven't been able to listen to them since.
NPR are shills. They produce some fine programming, but their interests are as viral as anybody elses.
Quack, quack.
Yes, even Howard Stern's own site says he's on Sirius.
And wiki says it too.
The posting is wrong.
can be found on most XM channels, but NO POLITICAL COMMERCIALS
Takes the cake for me
*DrugCheese rants*
NPR blames blocked signal for low audience.
Let me be the first to laugh.
And add Album 88 (88.5 in Atlanta - Georgia State) and WAMU 88.5 (News and Public Affairs in DC) to the list of stations that don't fit the mold.
Great post.
Just support GNURadio and spread spectrum technologies. Proprietization of the spectrum will go obsolete.
e ss.html
Read up:
http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Columns/Klingwirel
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Everyone seems to be complaining about the quality of NPR. Honestly, I don't listen to the radio much since I got my iPods, but when I do, it's ALWAYS NPR. It's good stuff. And this is coming from someone who's 16 years old.
Howard Stern = Sirius satellite radio, not XM. It's odd the summary above mentions content on one network, but the name of the other network.
... Maybe BS, maybe not. It's probably more of a case that some of the transmitters are more powerful than licensed and should be fixed.
The FCC was originally designed to regulate the radio waves... the transmission powers, the location of transmitters, ensuring different users didn't interfere with each other. That's the bulk of the complaints mentioned in the article.
The FCC has evolved into the decency police regulating what content can and can not be heard on free mediums. Those aren't the type of complaints currently being investigated because they have no authority over the satellite for-pay content.
The terrestrial radio business wants the FCC to regulate content on pay radio because pay-radio is currently better than free radio. They know that. They don't want to have to compete with the satellite guys who aren't under the same content restrictions as they are. So they're doing everything in their power to convince the FCC to try and regulate satellite content.
Things they're saying to achieve that:
1) Sirius gave a 2-day free preview over the internet. Therefore they're free and should be regulated! Obvious BS since the FCC doesn't regulate content on the internet.
2) The FM transmitters in cars that receive the radio signal and broadcast it to the car's radio are too powerful and other people can hear those transmissions.
I've had both. Sirius rocks. XM is decent. They're both better than normal radio.
I used to travel on the Mass Pike (I-90) highway on a regular basis, and would usually try to listen to the NPR stations on each ride. I say "try to listen" because every few minutes, the program would get cut by some nearby car using an FM loop to listen to their iPod or satellite radio units. It seems many of the simple FM loop devices use several of the common low-band channel spots which NPR stations prefer. The private unlicensed FM loopbacks would override the NPR licensed FM for a half mile, which means six-second bursts for opposing traffic, or 45-second periods of aggravation if I'm tracking with the FM-polluting idiot.
Someone suggested counter-warfare: I override THEIR FM with an even stronger burst that explains the problem. I don't feel that fighting fire with fire is going to help here.
[
NPRs complaint about the FM modulators has little to do with XM or Sirius; neither company makes nor operates the modulators, and I'm sure any that they sell have FCC approval. So if NPR has a problem with the modulators, it's either with people using unapproved or modified ones (seems unlikely), that the FCC hasn't been doing their jobs testing them (slightly more likely), that the manufacturing tolerances are terrible (much more likely), or that NPRs testing methodology of measuring unknown devices an unknown distance away in traffic isn't what you'd call rigorous (ding ding ding ding).
Local news covered by local folks (unlike the local daily paper, which is owned by Gannett), [...]
It's funny that you mention that. When modern-ish radio was first becoming commercialized, the belief was that programming had to be "local local local!" in order to generate any viewership - that radio had to talk about the most local minutinae in order to draw attention.
The idea of nationally syndicated programming, music, etc. that left the "local local local!" paradigm was considered a revolution of sorts; now limiting the geographic appeal is the "it" thing.
Really, I could care less - I have my rock station, and it plays music that changes every once in a while without me having to pay them anything. Works welle enough for me.
DATABASE WOW WOW
I love the mechanics of capitalism, but this is not the right form of competition. Companies' should win out because they improve their product or make it cheaper, not by getting the government to handicap the superior product.
I can't find mention of it anywhere, but has NPR acknowledged that they have a stake in the XM vs Sirius race? The national NPR feed is only available on Sirius.
Jerm
Oh, you're not a real doctor, are you?
Slashdotters probably listen only to internet radio, these days...
-- Let's go Viridian.
Bye bye XM.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Prior to this, I supported zeroing out NPR's ability to force people to give it money (since it is partially taxpayer funded), and I planned on resuming voluntary "pledges" as soon as they were off the dole. But after this nastiness from them, I want the taxpayer support zeroes out AND I never want to give them any money, voluntarily, ever
Where were you when the voynix came?
"Satellite radio is stealing their listeners"
Does anyone on Slashdot really have any idea what the words/concepts of "theft" and "stealing" mean anymore?
"Siphoning off listeners is just business...."
Didn't you just say it was stealing?
Where were you when the voynix came?
The original news articles were not about XM's land bast transmittes but all the FM modulators and short range transmitters people are putting on XM boxes.. This second article doesnt have much content, just that NPR is upset.
Not sure if you have a clue about non-profits but their officers and management make profit vio their pay checks and that is stimulated by listeners who convince other corporation to invest/donate on the org.
To me, a Sirius subscriber, the most interesting part is the NAB and NPR's complaint about the shenangans XM is apparently playing with its re-transmission towers. From the article:
This clearly explains to me why XM seems to have much more sucess than Sirius in not dropping signals under overpasses, tunnels, trees etc. IMHO this filing is actually going to help Sirius a lot more than the NAB or NPR.
Maybe it's because I have the lowest-end XM unit, but my damn FM modulator has a hard time making a signal that can successfully get from my dashboard to my radio.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
Is it a valid law? ANd NOW you are siding with Bush's evil FCC!? Anyone who has a clue knows that satellite radio is threatening terrestrial radio. Not to mention the recent news coverage reports NPR is struggling financially because it cant win over enough listeners. Sometimes its about seeing the forest for the tress, and not about investigating small dark cavities filled with feces.
It is using public funds (which taxpayers are forced to pay) to file frivolous complaints to harass competitors. Just another reason the taxpayer subsidy to NPR should be eliminated.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Where I listen there's 90.3 and 90.5, and in the Berkshire Hills I believe WAMQ is in the 100s.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
NAB complained about the repeaters (power levels, licensed, etc). NPR is complaining about the power levels in FM modulators used to play through car stereos.
There's been an ongoing feud between NPR and Edwards ever since they canned him and he took his show to XM.... As far as repeaters go, where I live I never get more than one (of 3) bars of signal strength from the satelite. I rely on the terrestial repeaters to get any signal at all. I never use the built in fm-transmitter (I have a myfi) but I don't think there is a way to turn it off either (unless it knows to when you hook up to something else). I don't know if it affects other FM channels, I doubt I've used my regular FM radio in years now.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Howard Stern is not on XM.
NPR has three stations on Sirius, so why are they going after them?
The article states that many of the violations measured by NPR are probably MP3 players with FM transmitters.
Is there anything concrete to this at all, or is this just an outdated medium trying to get the government to kill the compitition (i.e. anything that allows people to choose their own music)? The best thing about satellite radio to me is the selection I can get from it over the internet, and they do a much better job of that than most other internet radio streams I've tried. The actual radio part is nice on my commute, but I don't really care about it.
I've got a solution to propose: why doesn't the FCC just designate a "national ultra-low-power frequency"? It seems like we need one; everyone has their iPods and XM Radios and other things that they want to play into their car stereo, and it's a real PITA to find an open channel. Plus, if you drive more than 50 miles, you have to retune it, because the "open frequency" in NYC is in use in Philly.
We need to take a single, or maybe a handful, of FM frequencies (probably at the low end of the band) and designate them for low-power portable operations -- usable only by transmitters below 200mW (or whatever the cutoff is for unlicensed FM transmitters now).
That would simplify people's lives who use portable audio equipment, because they wouldn't have to hunt for unused frequencies, and it would also make electronics designers lives easier (you'd just need a selector switch to choose between a few of the low-power-designated channels, or maybe not even that), and it would keep the unlicensed broadcasts from interfering with existing fixed service. It would pretty much be good for everybody.
It seems like this is just common sense; these sort of micro-FM-transmitters aren't going to go away anytime soon; in fact there are more of them being made every day. So the interference problem is only going to get worse if we don't do something.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"In its second claim, the NAB contends that XM and Sirius shouldn't be allowed to give away their products for free to new car buyers or online."
I love that part. Oh Lord, PLEASE don't let them GIVE away the product.
Seriously though, I'm sure there is some "legitimate" reason why they don't want them to give it away, but it just sounds funny to hear it like that.
This space intentionally left blank.
"The traditional broadcasters (i.e. ClearChannel) are trying to maintain their hold over the radio market."
And a tiny hold it is: they have 8% or so of radio stations.
Where were you when the voynix came?
There's nothing wrong with what you're doing. Unfortunately, your setup is not an option for a whole lot of people, who have cars manufactured in the large span of time where cassette decks weren't included, and neither were direct line-inputs for MP3 players. This basically covers a whole lot of mid-90s to present cars.
When I was looking for a car, I bought an older model year specifically because it had a cassette deck in its factory head unit (in addition to a CD) while the new model had dropped the cassette. I don't own any tapes anymore, but it's a good way to interface audio components into the system without doing any modifications to the vehicle.
FM radio modulators are going to be a part of life for the foreseeable future; people aren't going to go out and buy new cars or replace their head units with ones that have line-in jacks, to listen to their MP3 player. A radio transmitter is the quick-and-dirty, and therefore popular, solution.
As I've said elsewhere, if there was a designated low-power frequency for these things, then there wouldn't be an "arms race" of people trying to illegally ratchet up their transmitter power in order to use it on top of fixed (licensed) stations. You still might get interference between one person's car and another, but that's not nearly as big an issue as fixed/mobile interference, or people getting powerful transmitters because they don't want to have to hassle with changing the frequency when they drive around, or having distant fixed stations break through or fuzz their signal.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Even if I WERE tempted to buy an XM radio (my new car is "XM ready", which means I can spend a bundle to purchase the adaptor), which I'm not, the mere presence of people like Howard Stern would be enough to dissuade me.
Essentially this is a fight between media giants, and as is typical of the "free market", it's a fight over the rules that define the market.
The FCC can easily force stations to relocate; they just refuse to renew an operating license on a particular frequency.
I'm not going to go through the entire FM band, but based on my first few tries, there are a number of frequencies that only have a few stations operating on them nationwide.
87.9 MHz, for instance, is only used (according to radio-locator.com) by two licensed stations: KAWZ in Nevada and KSFH in Mountain View, CA. The latter is a high school. Running a Google search turns up a few more stations (one pirate station in San Francisco, apparently), and WBAR from Barnard College. I don't think it would be a major national sacrifice to move them to some other channel in their respective broadcasting areas. So that would be the likely candidate for a national standard low-power frequency.
Most of the other frequencies in the FM band have less than 200 stations on them in the U.S. and Canada combined; some down around 100 and some as high as 200+. While moving 100 or 150 stations wouldn't be trivial, if it was done over a period of a few years it wouldn't be terrible either. I don't think it's nearly as impossible a feat as you're making it out to be, and it's something that we need to do in order to mitigate interference and prevent a bigger problem in the future as more of these FM transmitters become available, and integrated into more portable devices.
The major issue would just be getting the FCC to do anything, since it's basically bought and owned by the major broadcasting companies and organizations.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Uhm. I'm not sure I quite understand most of what's going on ("what is that might 'frog with wings'") and you seem to be jumping around conclusions, inserting them where they don't belong and otherwise shifting mid-thought. If you're trying to emulate the difficulty of driving down the street with your radio content shifting every other block, congratulations, excellent joke. If you're being serious, and if I understand your argument, I'd like to point some things out.
Most Ipod-to-car type devices, and cell-phones-over-the-radio and anything like that, usually come with preset stations that most won't change. I stopped using mine when I realized it took too long to set up, I couldn't drive in any high traffic area without hitting interference from other cars and using a different station would only be effective for a block or so before I'd run into some radio station that only comes in when I hit certain spots of town. These are the problems they encounter. Whether you have them or not, enough of us can verify this claim.
NPR's funding for the project can be arguably reasoned as an effort to ensure that listeners are getting a quality experience. Either you're arguing as one of two "funders". First, you might be arguing as an NPR pledger, at which point I would say that that receiving programming is just as, if not more, important as producing the content and it's short-sighted to argue that just because you've not yet encountered signal shift than there is no problem and other users affected can cram their problem into their butt because you're not paying for their service. It's also like arguing "I don't want my pledge money going to pay for employee sick days" or "if any of my money is spent on staplers, I will never pledge again." There are any number of incidentals involved in providing your favorite show. Money pledged during more popular shows helps fund less popular shows, some money goes into paying for employee benefits, someone has to pay for studio time.
Or perhaps you're arguing as a tax-payer, and your argument is that your tax dollars shouldn't be funding their research. Your complaint is noted, but it's as... argh... what's the word? Useless? Moot? No, those are too harsh. Basically, your argument that you don't want to fund their research about signal strength bears the same weight as you writing a letter to the US Army saying "focus more on developing freeze guns because those are nicer" or "please ensure that my tax dollars are spent on tanks rather than airplanes." If it makes you feel better to believe that the small percentage of your taxes going to the NPR people is only spent on programming, that's fine because they can use all of mine for their research, but that's just ignorance of finance. Using that logic, you can probably assume that every single dollar of your taxes went to pay for that one person on assistance living down the block from you and they're practically your dependent since they're paid entirely by your tax funds. Most of us realize that our money is basically thrown into a slushfund, and then doled out. Some of this pays for services I agree with (programs and institutions I like) and some goes for services I disagree with (funding the Iraq war.) I can complain, and vote for politicians that promise to slash funding for that program later, but overall I realize that there's someone else out there who probably wants ALL their taxes to go for the things I want none of mine going to.
If anything, their name check of MP3s is the opposite of "Napster doom and gloom" since they are not saying that MP3s are causing the problem MP3 players should be regulated. In fact, their support of podcasting disputes that argument. You would have a better argument dropping the "evil MP3's" slant and talking about how NPR is singling out the XM and other satellite players as an evil when there are other culprits mentioned almost as an aside (note, I have not yet read the article, I'm going on the fact that the submission almost entirely focuses on th
"one only has to listen to 20 seconds of Howard Stern's language to know that the lack of regulation gives satellite radio a distinct advantage"
-------------------
It clearly depends on how you define "advantage".
Me thinks the language matches the content.
I can't wait to hear the Ira Glass special on the overweight hookers farting contest.
Oh wait, that would be on NOVA, wouldn't it??
.
If Howard Stern's language is a "distinct advantage" someone needs a brain transplant.
As a matter of fact, I do as I work for one and have for many years. Not-for-profit means that they're not publicly owned or traded. Therefore whatever 'profit' (which is really just the surplus after expenses) that is made gets reinvested in the company mostly for improving services or upgrading infrastructure.
This is markedly different from publicly held broadcasting companies who have obligations to their boards, shareholders, and corporate sponsers. So who would I rather get my news from? A private organization or a bunch of corporate shills with a political axe to grind? I'm not naive enough to believe that any news source is completely unbiased but NPR is about as close as you can get, especially in this country. BTW - This is coming from a political and fiscal conservative and I'm not the only one. I know a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that listen to NPR. So it's not just for tree-huggers and hippies anymore.
And would you please explain to me how NPR is working with government to reduce our freedoms again? Seriously, WTF?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I was directing a college station in 1979-80 when they kicked us all out of the 10-watt program and bumped us up to >+100, guess they moved power but kept the bands where they were.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"In the ongoing radio wars, one only has to listen to 20 seconds of Howard Stern's language to know that the lack of regulation gives satellite radio a distinct advantage.
Um, I just can't seem to figure out how Howard Stern's langauge give anyone an advantage. Wait! just as I was typing I realized what the advantage was... lack of intelligent discussion. I forgot all you kids grew up as the MTV generation.
NPR reminds me where there's money there are underhanded business tactics.
Quack, quack.
If 'radio is dead' where are you going to get...
I've found that podcasts have changed how I listen to the "radio" immensely.
Ironically, it was NPR's podcasts that really did it; I never was particularly interested in the amateur ones, although maybe I just never found the right things to listen to. But I now have iTunes subscribed to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and the "Most E-Mailed Stories"; the former is weekly and the latter daily updates. (If only they had Car Talk available via iTunes as a free automatic Podcast, my life would be complete...) Every morning I just grab my iPod on the way out the door, plug it into my car's audio system, and hit play. It's like radio, but it's on my schedule. If I don't want to listen to the news that morning, I can throw on something lighter, or just listen to music. If I need to make or take a phone call, I can pause it and come back later.
A few years ago, I would have agreed with you that radio was essential; I use my car's CD player only occasionally, and listened to radio constantly. However, I could easily see podcasts replacing radio; it's the broadcast-TV equivalent of a TiVo. Everybody gets exactly the programming they want, on their schedule.
All the mediums that work on radio -- comedy, news (admittedly not in real time), music, variety shows -- all work in podcasts. As soon as people can get the licensing and copyright problems worked out, I think there's a market for music podcasts produced by DJs. As people acquire larger and larger music libraries, having playlists picked out and being exposed to new music becomes more important and valued. I think there's room for DJs to actually be creative again, instead of just being robotic talking heads; they have to be creative, and find ways to add value, because if people just want to listen to music they don't have to listen to a DJ anymore.
I see XM and Sirius as transitional formats. They're subscription-based, but they don't let you really pick what you're subscribing to. Subscriber-supported podcasts, on the other hand, would give people who are interested in content what they want, without having to pay for stuff they don't. And it doesn't even have to rely on advertising to work. I think the market is only going to grow; eventually the portable MP3 player will itself become redundant, and people's car stereos will just download the tracks automatically using WiFi or cellular connections. It's not that farfetched; the technology to do it today exists, it's mostly the cost and complexity that's keeping it away from most people.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Therefore the satellite providers are not "competitors".
I think the taxpayer subsidy for the military should also be eliminated so that I don't have to pay for frivolous wars I disagree with. If someone wants to beat down some other country, they should hire one of the many available commercial outfits to do it. The Defense Department is unfairly interfering with the free market for mercenary services.
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
Howard Stern. Since Howard joined Sirius, it is growing subscribers faster than XM is.
Also, XM is airing some its "exclusive" shows like Opie and Anthony on terrestrial radio now, albeit slightly censored. How do you think XM subscribers feel about having to pay for content that's now free somewhere else?
My Sirius Reciever on FM Transmit can BARELY broadcast powerful enough to recieve it clear in my OWN car on low band frequencies. I think the FM transmitter problem is solely an issue with XM.
"profit just demonstrates that NPR is as evil as the rest of corporate radio "
Looks like from your wording that you also realize that NPR is a corporation.
"will jump into bed with government to reduce our freedoms."
They are already in bed with government: government forces the average taxpayer to give money to NPR.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Great Salon article explains this and why the current FCC system is antiquated.
2 /spectrum/index.html
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2003/03/1
Report to the CIA that you think your PC is being hacked by Al Qaida terrorists. Report to the FCC that your business's legal radio transmissions are being interfered with. See who responds first!
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
I wish I had the guts to post misdirected, uninformed rage with enough courage to attach my name to it.
There, fixed it.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
What seems really strange to me is that MY Sirius, when I was using the FM modulator, was usually overpowered my even weak stations, so I don't think that I was interfering with anyone else. The FM modulators outputs are scattered all over the FM band, as are many lower powered radio stations, and the only reception complaints are from NPR listeners????? Sounds funny to me!!? And the Satellite Terrestrial repeaters operate the the 2.XXX GHz microwave range close to the satellite transmitters frequency.
I am very curious to find out how this is done. We have a repeater attached to our apartment and find it quite annoying and sometimes a little scary. A satellite dish is attached to one corner of the outside wall of our apartment. There are two "thin cables" that run to a repeater. Then another set of much thicker cables run from the repeater around our apartment wall just barely above each of our back bedrooms window (you can see the stupid things standing up and looking out the window) to a 5-10 foot pole antenna.
What truly scares me is the fact that most of the insulation has fallen off of both the receiving and especially the transmitting cables. I don't know if it's related but we can't get a good wireless signal 5 feet from most WAPs we have purchased over the years.
Should I be concerned that they have such powerful cables transmitting literally 3 feet from where I sleep?
While the FM spectrum below 92 MHz is reserved for non-profit and community broadcasters (and relatively low-power transmitters), there is no requirement that non-profits are restricted to that part of the spectrum.
In the NYC market there is a non-profit station (WBAI) right in the middle of the dial at 99.5. They are running a 50kW transmitter from the top of the Empire State building, which makes for one of the strongest signals on the dial...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Why bother to innovate.
Quack, quack.
I actually volunteered there for a while on 7 Second Delay, with Ken and Andy.
WFMU kept me alive with Punk/Hardcore in the early 1980's when you couldn't find anywhere else to listen to music.
It's one of the few stations that DJ's can have Mr. Sinatra, followed by the Bad Brains, and then some MC Soleil (a French rapper), and actually have the music flow sound good.
I've always felt that WFMU was the station to listen to, if you REALLY liked music.
Now I listen to it over the internet in Los Angeles.
..........FULL STOP.
I can't believe the number of stupid, ignorant, uninformed posts over this article. However kewl you think XM or Sirius is, or if you think NPR has an axe to grind with satellite radio, or if broadcast radio is antiquated, if XM or Sirius are breaking the law - THEY'RE BREAKING THE LAW. Federal regulations are there for a reason. Laws aren't made for companies to ignore if they have a popular product. If you disagree, please be ready to extend this privlege to oil, energy, and manufacturing companies who would be more than happy to stop complying with costly environmental regulations.
It's just amazing how Slashdot can take such an obviously slanted article and add to it, with the Slashdot hoi polloi following along like a bunch of lemmings.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
I've moved geographic regions to a location where I can still pick up my old NPR affiliate, but barely. There's this stretch of highway that I always seem to pick up Howard Stern on when driving into work in the morning though. I wondered why that was happening.
As a Sirius subscriber, I want MORE repeaters and strong FM transmitters. I subscribe because I don't like commercials and I don't like censorship.
Fuck the FCC.
"... if you buy from a smart car manufacturer, like Toyota, you can get an auxiliary input jack in even the cheapest car. I know as I own a 2007 Toyota Yaris and I regularly enjoy plugging into the car stereo through the aux-in connector in the console between the front seats."
:-)
Did it ever occur to you that not everyone has bought a car in the past two years? Toyota didn't start putting those jacks in all their cars until very recently. It's certainly not in my 2000 Camary. So I guess, by your logic, all manufactuers are not smart. I find this especially funny, given you have a 2007 Yaris, when today's date is November 2006.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I sort of place music on-demand in the same category as speech-recognition and text-to-speech for text messaging. It might work and be cool, but it's easier to just call the person.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
and You can't be too bright to not listen to any of the 148 channels he's not on.
Even for those of us that demand lossless, Multi-Terri byte is generally unneeded. Lets do the math.
700 MB - Largest CD Size.
1,000 CDs - A very large CD Collection.
----------
700,000 MB - Not even a Terabyte for a very large CD collection
Even as uncompressed wave files, one external 750GB drive is more than most people will ever need. My 400+ CD collection ripped to FLAC in less than 200GB. I expect that over the next week or two, I will run the whole thing through a transcoder and keep a copy of each song in MP3 as well. It will make it easier for my wife to use as her pap only uses MP3, and given that the whole collection takes less than 200GB of the 750GB, I still won't come close to filling the drive.
"A recent test found that 19 of these transmitters were unlicensed and another 221 exceeded their authorized power level, giving NPR an opening to press with an apparently sympathetic FCC."
NPR programming is carried by XM's competitor, Sirius (the same guys who also carry Howard Stern).
At any rate, I don't understand why NPR (or, more specifically, NPR member stations) would have an axe to grind against satellite radio, since the only real advantage satellite has over public radio is not having to change stations when you're on a road trip. I find myself wondering if NPR stations have had their listenership drop in the same way as commercial radio, so maybe we should look into that before we start declaring an NPR anti-technology bias.
Yes, I'm well aware of that.
Which is not to say that the fact that I could buy a 2001 Subaru in April of 2000 isn't stupid. It keeps getting worse, too. We're fast approaching the point where the model year will be *two* years in the future. At this rate, it will be automobile makers who have a Y3K problem first.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I misunderstood the article and was unaware that NPR was indeed rebroadcast on XM/Sirius. Thank you for correcting me, peer-review does work!
XM doesn't build the receivers/transmitters. They are built by many different companies. I use a transmitter in my car but it is NOT made by XM radio. Going after XM would be like going after a car company after you had a tire blow out. Yes you are using it with the car but the tire is made by Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich, etc. They should go after the company who is actually breaking the law!