Slashdot Mirror
iPhones, FStream and the Death of Satellite Radio
Statesman writes "Only a little over a year ago, the
FCC approved the merger of XM and Sirius
satellite radio companies and the combined stock was trading at $4 a share. Despite being a monopoly — or perhaps because of it — the company is failing. They are losing subscribers, the stock is now trading around 22 cents a share (a 97% decline), and they have written off $4.8 billion dollars in stock value. So, what happened? The CEO is blaming pretty much everyone except himself and his business model. But is pay-for-bandwidth even a viable business plan anymore? With millions of iPhone and gPhone users out there, free streaming audio applications like FStream, and thousands of Internet radio stations to access, the question is: why would anyone want to pay for proprietary hardware and a limited selection of a few hundred stations all controlled by one company?"
Read on for the rest of Statesman's thoughts.
Statesman continues:
"It seems like the pay-for-broadcast business model is fundamentally flawed. First, satellite radio is a misnomer; if you are listening inside a big building, chances are you're really using WiFi radio, not satellite, which requires line-of-sight to the sky. In this mode, XM/Sirius offers less selection and higher cost than an iPhone and streaming audio client. Second, a monopoly is a monopoly. Sure, you can get dozens of ClearChannel stations in some markets, but after a while it does not matter whether they are country, top 40 or easy listening. They all have the same format of hypercharged 'personalities' and lots of ads. By contrast, the iPhone and streaming client can access thousands of stations from thousands of providers worldwide. Finally, you may say that an iPhone and service agreement are expensive compared to a satellite radio subscription, but if you already have the iPhone, the cost of adding a stream audio application is zero. And the iPhone is cheap compared to a cell phone plus an MP3 player plus a laptop plus internet access. Bottom line: a year after being granted monopoly status, Sirius is all but bankrupt and the satellite radio business model is dead. Time for the FCC to think seriously about making better use of this bandwidth."
"It seems like the pay-for-broadcast business model is fundamentally flawed. First, satellite radio is a misnomer; if you are listening inside a big building, chances are you're really using WiFi radio, not satellite, which requires line-of-sight to the sky. In this mode, XM/Sirius offers less selection and higher cost than an iPhone and streaming audio client. Second, a monopoly is a monopoly. Sure, you can get dozens of ClearChannel stations in some markets, but after a while it does not matter whether they are country, top 40 or easy listening. They all have the same format of hypercharged 'personalities' and lots of ads. By contrast, the iPhone and streaming client can access thousands of stations from thousands of providers worldwide. Finally, you may say that an iPhone and service agreement are expensive compared to a satellite radio subscription, but if you already have the iPhone, the cost of adding a stream audio application is zero. And the iPhone is cheap compared to a cell phone plus an MP3 player plus a laptop plus internet access. Bottom line: a year after being granted monopoly status, Sirius is all but bankrupt and the satellite radio business model is dead. Time for the FCC to think seriously about making better use of this bandwidth."
I use them myself but I am not fond of "disclaimers" like that "whether you like him or not is not the issue" line. I can easily understand why you threw that in (it was probably wise) but sometimes I get frustrated with the need for them and feel like I'd prefer not to see them and then ridicule anyone who seriously thinks that was the basis of your argument. But then, I'm growing a wee bit tired of how much stupidity is out there and (worse) the fact that everyone is generally expected to accommodate it.
I'd be a lot more willing to accommodate it if I really believed that the ones perpetrating it were incapable of doing any better, but the likelihood is that the portion of Slashdot users with organic brain damage or other insurmountable obstacles is incredibly small. All or nearly all of them could do better. You could be the only person who has ever expected better-than-stupid from an individual but everyone's only concern is with whether you might have been rude to them (in other words, people want to feel good without the burden of any true concern for each other's well-being, so we have the superficial "be nice!" culture). These days, you can't just say what you mean; you have to also say what you didn't mean or else you're going to get sidetracked by some simpleton who attacks claims you never made and sidetracked again when said simpleton refuses to believe that you know what you intended to communicate better than he does.
I know this was a bit of a rant and possibly off-topic, but I post this anyway knowing that I can't be the only one who's getting tired the direction in which our culture is headed. I'm fairly young, too. I wonder sometimes how older people can stand it, because they have had more time to watch the steady decline of this culture and the subsequent lowering of most of the standards.