All entries for February 2006

Its a little thing called competition

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4748022.stm

On my daily trawl through the BBC news website I came across this article about the commercial radio stations claiming the BBC is a threat to them and that the increase in license fee could force them out of business. Ok, they have a right to complain, its in there interest to, but some of the claims in the report make it sound like by increasing the license fee there killing off the creativity and variety of UK radio.

Come on they must be having a laugh. Most commercial radio stations play the same old dribble piped down to them from GCap media, apart from the idents and adverts its hard to tell the difference between some stations and to be fair if mercia fm packed up shop tomorrow becuse of it, I wouldn't miss tham there still be The Bear.h

I don't see ITV and Channel 4 complaining as much as this about the TV market, I mean after all competition is good for the listener and maybe it will help get rid/improve some of the local commercial radio's content instead of just playing the same old network songs from Gcap media. Also, I didn't see the BBC complain when capital radio group merged with GWR last year.

: 27 Feb 2006 17:36 |  Tags: BBC Broadcasting Commerical Media Radio |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pay per listen podcasts & subscription radio, the future?

Follow-up to The power of podcast and the Ricky Gervais show from The Blog of Craig

At the start of the week, the Ricky Gervais show announced they were going to do a 2nd series of podcasts but they were going to charge for them and although its only $6.95 for at least 4 episodes of the great comedy show, it got me thinking about the advent of subscription radio and podcasts.

Sirius & XM satellite radio started broadcasting in 2001 in the US and offer subscription radio starting at $12.95/month and they have literally become the Sky of radio with Sirius offering exclusive live commentary of all NFL games and having give Howard Stern, the Chris Moyles of US radio, a $500 million contract they are really starting to gain a foothold on the radio market especially with the technology getting cheaper.

Satellite radio is more free from regulations which suits the colorful language of Howard Stern very well, allowing him to swear on air as they can have 'adult channels' due to the fact they can control who listens and has subscriptions to his station. I suppose this can be seen as an advantage and I expect soon there will be adult sex talk radio stations if theres not already broadcasting on the medium. Also, in terms of sound quality apprently its far better which would be expected I suppose.

Satellite radio hasn't really happened anywhere else in the world yet and I can't see it happening in the UK anytime soon really due to the small size of the UK not making it that viable, saying that though it would only take Sky TV to branch into the area and make it happen.

Its weird really that satellite tv came before satellite radio its a bit like reversing evolution with radio origianlly coming before television and my Dad always says that if radio had originally came after TV it would be more popular. Although I somehow doubt that, it does seem subscription radio and audio is in the future whether thats a good thing or not, I don't know but when Sky began broadcasting in 1989 it certainly shuck up the UK TV market and maybe the same will happen to UK radio around the next corner.

: 25 Feb 2006 02:34 |  Tags: Comedy Podcast Radio |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem