March 15, 2005
Mike Rogers

Over the next ten to twenty years there will be a revolution in broadcasting
so drastic that I believe TV sets will virtually disappear in American homes
within the next 25 years. The in-home AM/FM radio is already going the way
of the 1950's short-wave, and within 15 years will become a curiosity.

After being slapped with several serious fines amounting to over $2.5
million dollars over the last ten years for profanity from the Nanny state
under the guise of the FCC, Howard Stern is boasting that he will take his
act to the future of radio broadcasting: Satellite radio and move to Sirius
Satellite Radio beginning in January of 2006. Sirius is going to pay Howard
Stern $500 million dollars over the span of five years. Great deal for
Howard Stern? Most definitely. Good deal for Sirius Satellite Radio? Well,
desperate people will do desperate things. But most of you folks already
know this story. It's what Howard doesn't know (and that includes most
people) that's going to hurt. The future of broadcasting is definitely not
in satellites.

(snip)

For the FM radio stations, things look even worse. Many new cars are coming
out in Japan that do not even have FM radio tuners in them. And why should
they? The cars are all equipped with GPS and are soon to be Internet
compatible. Most can already plug into radio via cell-phone. And the
cell-phone providers are not lining themselves up with FM radio providers.
They are setting up themselves with Broad-band and Internet stations. The AM
stations' saving grace will be the traffic reports - but even that is "iffy"
as GPS can do the same thing.

Recent surveys have shown that more and more people are gathering their news
from the Internet. Younger people have no problem with this at all. The
older generation who has the out-dated (and wasteful) habit of feeling like
they need to read a newspaper or watch TV news will not change course. You
cannot teach an old dog new tricks. But, this older generation,
unfortunately, will be gone soon enough. And when they are, and the
subscription numbers of newspapers hit rock bottom; the TV news viewer-ship
continues to erode (and it has been eroding for the last 20 years across the
board); and the conglomerates are no longer capable of justifying to
sponsors spending millions on ads that no one sees, the entire mass media
set-up we have been used to for the last 50 years will come crashing down.
This is the assumption that TIVO has been working on, somewhat successfully,
over these last five years. The problem for TIVO now is: With HDD DVD coming
on the market, who needs to pay a monthly subscription to TIVO? I suspect
that if you own TIVO stock, you had better sell now. Heck, think about it,
any stock in any Big Media is a sure loser.

We now have Internet radio. I work in the music business. It is common
knowledge among everyone in my field, that young people who want to hear new
music, listen to Internet radio. No one listens to FM anymore. FM radio is
beyond repair to the younger crowd as it has a very unfashionable and
worthless image. The Internet radio stations are exciting and they are
booming. It's just a matter of time, before Internet radio destroys FM radio
for music lovers, be they Classical, Jazz, or even Country music, Rock, or
Hip Hop fans. And it won't matter if we are talking about in the home or in
the car.

In Japan, just about all the cellular phone companies are launching their
own Internet accessible radio networks. Who needs to buy a $500 to $1200
dollar AM/FM CD player for the car when you can just plug your cell phone
into your in-car CD/DVD player and be able to access literally thousands
crystal clear Internet stations as well as down-loadable music from the
Internet?

And, from what I understand, Internet TV is just around the corner. In fact,
several business associates of mine are contemplating starting the worlds
first 24-hour-a-day Internet TV News Network. How do they make money from
it? Now that's the $64 million dollar question. But I can see making more
money from that in twenty years than I can from how the traditional TV
stations do it. The traditional stations are dinosaurs and most of them
don't even know it yet.

Very soon, people won't need an AM/FM radio receiver. They won't need a TV
screen. Newspapers are already on their last legs. Everyone already has a
computer - No, everyone needs a computer. The computer will be able to do
them all in one place. And back to satellite radio? Are you kidding, Howard
Stern? You don't think that people are going to go out and actually spend a
few hundred dollars to buy a satellite dish and tuner, plus pay monthly
subscription fees, when they can most likely get your show pirated over the
Internet for free do you?

The Internet is the key. Internet news is destroying the newspapers, and
helping Big Media TV news destroy itself. Internet radio is here. Internet
TV is just around the corner. HDD DVD is coming this year. And the beautiful
part? No sponsors, no fees, no commercials. Some smart person is going to
come up with, in short order, a revolutionary way to advertise too, and then
it will be game over for Big Media.

So, Howard Stern, congrats on the $500 million from Sirius Satellite
Radio.... Try to get the money up-front. And if you can, run like hell and
don't look back.

(Full article at http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers134.html )