"Kimba W. Lion" wrote in message
Actually, I was trying to look beyond his proselytizing. I used his own
phrase as a reference point.

If you think ownership doesn't matter, well... dream on, silly dreamer.

Thanks for the "if", Kim. I didn't say this and don't believe it.
Ownership matters. But business model matters more, including the ability to
design and subsidize proprietary receivers. The delivery system matters more
because it permits the aggregation of niche tastes. The absence of content
regulation, particularly television-style coerced, non-marketplace, nabcaster
carriage is hugely important. This enables satellite radio to build a secular,
pro-liberty constituency that in time will let it win the battle against
terrestrial for full First Amendment rights.

But ownership is in there somewhere. Regs chose duopoly rather than
monopoly for satellite radio, and chose well.

Never forget that satellite radio is *hometown* radio. It brings the best
of the culture, seven jazz channels for example, to every community in America.
Including the "flyover" communities whose limited commercial potential makes
them irrelevant to terrestrial media elites.

Jerome

Cooperstown.Net wrote:

Never forget that satellite radio is *hometown* radio. It brings the best
of the culture, seven jazz channels for example, to every community in America.
Including the "flyover" communities whose limited commercial potential makes
them irrelevant to terrestrial media elites.

You have a very odd definition of hometown.

I suppose if you're listening to XM and are from San Antonio, Texas, it's
"hometown" radio because that's where Clear Channel's corporate headquarters
are. :P Or if you're in NYC and listening to Sirius.

At any rate, "beamed down from a bird in orbit thousands of miles above Earth"
doesn't qualify as hometown radio as far as I'm concerned.

And you forget who owns the satellite companies... "terrestrial media elites."
At least here in the US. (OK, that's true of XM for sure... not sure about
Sirius's corporate pedigree, but the people in charge are from large
communications companies...)

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

In article ,
Steve Sobol wrote:
I suppose if you're listening to XM and are from San Antonio, Texas, it's
"hometown" radio because that's where Clear Channel's corporate headquarters
are. :P Or if you're in NYC and listening to Sirius.

Correction: Clear Channel no longer owns an attributable stake in XM.
They never owned as much as 25% in any case. (XM's headquarters are
in Washington, BTW.) The biggest owner of XM is Rupert Murdoch's
DIRECTV Group.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
| generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

Garrett Wollman wrote:
In article ,
Steve Sobol wrote:

I suppose if you're listening to XM and are from San Antonio, Texas, it's
"hometown" radio because that's where Clear Channel's corporate headquarters
are. :P Or if you're in NYC and listening to Sirius.


Correction: Clear Channel no longer owns an attributable stake in XM.
They never owned as much as 25% in any case. (XM's headquarters are
in Washington, BTW.) The biggest owner of XM is Rupert Murdoch's
DIRECTV Group.

Thanks; ok, details are slightly off, but the concept is still the same.
Perhaps even more so in Murdoch's case.


--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

"Steve Sobol" wrote in message
...
Garrett Wollman wrote:
In article ,
Steve Sobol wrote:

I suppose if you're listening to XM and are from San Antonio, Texas, it's
"hometown" radio because that's where Clear Channel's corporate
headquarters
are. :P Or if you're in NYC and listening to Sirius.


Correction: Clear Channel no longer owns an attributable stake in XM.
They never owned as much as 25% in any case. (XM's headquarters are
in Washington, BTW.) The biggest owner of XM is Rupert Murdoch's
DIRECTV Group.

Thanks; ok, details are slightly off, but the concept is still the same.
Perhaps even more so in Murdoch's case.

Even the Hughes ownership, which started at over 20%, which transferred to
DirecTV, was sold a year ago.

DirecTV Sells XM Stake

By TSC Staff
3/26/2004 10:02 AM EST



Shares of XM Satellite Radio (XMSR:Nasdaq - news - research) slipped Friday
after longtime backer DirecTV (DTV:NYSE - news - research) sold its stake.


DirecTV raised $230 million Friday by selling the public 9 million shares in
the fast-growing Washington, D.C., satellite radio broadcaster, XM said in a
Friday morning press release. DirecTV, which until this year was a General
Motors (GM:NYSE - news - research) unit called Hughes Electronics, was an
early investor in XM and remained its largest shareholder through January,
according to Yahoo! Finance.

The investment was surely a profitable one for DirecTV, which recently came
under the control of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS:NYSE - news -
research) . After all, XM shares posted a staggering 1,000% gain last year
as investors bought into its promise of early leadership in a fast-growing
tech niche. At the end of 2002, before the XM rally began in earnest, GM and
its affiliates held nearly 20% of the company. .

It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if DirecTV or Clear owned a bunch of
XM, but they don't:

DirecTV Sells XM Stake -- 3/26/2004 10:02 AM EST
.....investment was surely a profitable one for DirecTV,...XM shares posted a
staggering 1,000% gain last year...
http://www.thestreet.com/_tsclsii/ma.../10150897.html

This angle of attack appears to be going noplace. So I expect we'll shortly
be reminded that Karmazin runs Sirius and that both providers are teamed with
good terrestrial radio people.

It's the absence of a coinbox that has turned terrestrial into a wasteland,
not "corporate greed."

Jerome

"Steve Sobol" wrote in message
...
Garrett Wollman wrote:
In article ,
Steve Sobol wrote:

I suppose if you're listening to XM and are from San Antonio, Texas, it's
"hometown" radio because that's where Clear Channel's corporate headquarters
are. :P Or if you're in NYC and listening to Sirius.


Correction: Clear Channel no longer owns an attributable stake in XM.
They never owned as much as 25% in any case. (XM's headquarters are
in Washington, BTW.) The biggest owner of XM is Rupert Murdoch's
DIRECTV Group.

Thanks; ok, details are slightly off, but the concept is still the same.
Perhaps even more so in Murdoch's case.

Cooperstown.Net wrote:

This angle of attack appears to be going noplace. So I expect we'll shortly
be reminded that Karmazin runs Sirius and that both providers are teamed with
good terrestrial radio people.

Look, folks, perhaps I shouldn't have named names. Especially since I don't
follow the satellite radio business as closely as I could. Especially,
especially since there are people who are much more familiar with the players
involved than I am.

However, if y'all really want to argue that satellite radio is "hometown"
radio, I'll argue until my dying day that it's not. It is the diametric
OPPOSITE of hometown radio. "Hometown" implies a broadcast outlet directing its
programming at an audience in the same geographical area.

Jerome, THAT is the point I was trying to make (and apparently failed to make).

For us ("us" including you, if I recall correctly) to have complained for years
about industry consolidation and the homogenization of radio outlets across the
USA, and then for you to tout satellite as "hometown" programming, is beyond my
comprehension, and I'm shocked to hear such a thing from any of the regulars,
ESPECIALLY you.

Maybe I'm just confused. Perhaps you could clarify your statement.

**SJS

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

"Steve Sobol" wrote in message
...

However, if y'all really want to argue that satellite radio is "hometown"
radio, I'll argue until my dying day that it's not. It is the diametric
OPPOSITE of hometown radio. "Hometown" implies a broadcast outlet
directing its
programming at an audience in the same geographical area.


And... we have the only two users of satellite radio spectrum with nearly
300 channels controlled by 2 companies. Hometown? Bzzt. Independent? Bzzzt.
Anti-consolidation? Bzzzzt.

Steve, I'm sure you've confused me with another poster. I've never pined
for a different and supposedly golden era of radio with council meetings, lost
puppies and local artists. These were Hendricks and gaffo's themes, not mine.
Consolidation was a theme of others. Payola was a theme of others. Live and
local, a fetish of others. Automated and local is cheaper and works as well on
radio as it does on the web.

My issues are, typically

1) The sheer inefficiency of paying for content through undifferentiated
commercial sponsorship. Not that long ago, the only way for a listener to pay
for radio was to be harangued.
2) NAB's attempts to brake technical progress and its chokehold on the
bandwidth and the fundamental liberties of its competitors
3) If excessive competition were a problem (the Bakersfield principle) the
license prices wouldn't be going up
4) If even more competition eventually forces profitability and license
prices down, terrestrial radio would survive nonetheless, and might even find it
necessary to invest in local content to differentiate and compete.

Am I a little nostalgic for Wm. B Williams, Shep, Carlton Fredericks, Brad
Crandall, Bill Watson, BAI and Monitor? Of course. What thinking listener
doesn't have a set of names like these, exemplifying calm, worldliness,
spontaneity and respect. But they were rarities even then, they can't be
regulated back into existence, and I probably wouldn't have time for them today.
The golden era of radio is the one we're in, with satellite, internet and
time-shifting through Winamp, CD burning and flash memory. As dismal as AM and
FM became, the marketplace found other ways to meet listener demand. Good radio
people may have landed out on their ear, but we listeners definitely got our
portion.

What makes Satellite radio hometown? Well, when NAB does its annual brag
about how many artists and songs terrestrial radio introduced, its tally
includes about 12,000 signals that any given listener cannot receive. It is
satellite that brings these niche formats to every community in the contiguous
states. A far richer variety in East Jesus, USA than was available in the
biggest markets a few years ago. Each listener is a hometown
subscriber/sponsor; satellite has a name on file, a feedback and accountability
mechanism in place, and a keen awareness of the economic value that listener
represents.

XM is developing digital fountain technology and will be as locally
differentiated as regulators permit it to be. No longer will the information
you need be tied to the music or commercials you despise; it'll be stored in the
background and available at your convenience. Including, perhaps, a traffic
report from terrestrial, and real-time room availabilities from the local
motels. Onscreen or via synthesized voice. NAB will have a fit.

I'll admit there's a disigenuous element to the "hometown" crack, though I
stand by it. I'm actually on very friendly terms with most of the broadcasters
in this community. Jim and Jim, the former owners of one group. Cindy and Jen,
the voice talent. George, the new manager. Jan, owner of the other group.
Doug and Tracy on the air. Known 'em and liked 'em for years. But I don't
listen. Home is where the eardrums are.

Jerome


"Steve Sobol" wrote in message
...
Cooperstown.Net wrote:

This angle of attack appears to be going noplace. So I expect we'll
shortly
be reminded that Karmazin runs Sirius and that both providers are teamed
with
good terrestrial radio people.

Look, folks, perhaps I shouldn't have named names. Especially since I don't
follow the satellite radio business as closely as I could. Especially,
especially since there are people who are much more familiar with the players
involved than I am.

However, if y'all really want to argue that satellite radio is "hometown"
radio, I'll argue until my dying day that it's not. It is the diametric
OPPOSITE of hometown radio. "Hometown" implies a broadcast outlet directing
its
programming at an audience in the same geographical area.

Jerome, THAT is the point I was trying to make (and apparently failed to
make).

For us ("us" including you, if I recall correctly) to have complained for
years
about industry consolidation and the homogenization of radio outlets across
the
USA, and then for you to tout satellite as "hometown" programming, is beyond
my
comprehension, and I'm shocked to hear such a thing from any of the regulars,
ESPECIALLY you.

Maybe I'm just confused. Perhaps you could clarify your statement.

**SJS

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

"Steve Sobol" wrote in message
...
Cooperstown.Net wrote:

Never forget that satellite radio is *hometown* radio. It brings the
best
of the culture, seven jazz channels for example, to every community in
America.
Including the "flyover" communities whose limited commercial potential
makes
them irrelevant to terrestrial media elites.

You have a very odd definition of hometown.

I suppose if you're listening to XM and are from San Antonio, Texas, it's
"hometown" radio because that's where Clear Channel's corporate
headquarters
are. :P Or if you're in NYC and listening to Sirius.

At any rate, "beamed down from a bird in orbit thousands of miles above
Earth"
doesn't qualify as hometown radio as far as I'm concerned.

And you forget who owns the satellite companies... "terrestrial media
elites."
At least here in the US. (OK, that's true of XM for sure... not sure about
Sirius's corporate pedigree, but the people in charge are from large
communications companies...)

Steve,

Clear now has less than 1% of XM; they never were more than 5% to 6% before
the dilution of equity due to the constant issuance of more stock to pay for
the huge losses. No other media company has any position in XM... the
biggest players are car manufacturers and mutual funds.