Sirius XM Should Acquire Pandora
Today on ArsTechnica, there was a story about Pandora and how they can’t make any money. The Cliff’s Notes version to get everyone up to speed is this. Pandora is a revolutionary online radio program that uses the music genome project to take user preferences based on a few songs and program a customized radio station just for you. If you like your death metal technical, and swedish like Meshuggah, Pandora will play some Meshuggah. And then they will find other bands that sound similar like Lamb of God, or At the Gates or some other Scandinavian death metal.
It is brilliant. It is the future of radio. It has no business model yet.
SoundExchange is all but guaranteeing that the business model is going to fail. They are the royalty-collecting wing of the RIAA. They are in the process of imposing a fee of 2.91 cents per hour per listener for the right to broadcast music. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is. Satellite radio has a rate of about 1.61 cents per hour per listener. The reasoning for making Pandora’s rate so much higher is basically because their service is so cool. SoundExchange treats Pandora differently because it creates something of a 1 to 1 relationship with each member of its audience whereas SiriusXM has a single playlist for a station that maybe thousands of people listen to at the same time.
I wrote about the satellite radio merger the other day and mentioned that the whole satellite delivery method of radio was eventually going to become obsolete with the proliferation of mobile internet. I still believe that, but here’s the thing. The proliferation of mobile internet is far from upon us.
So in the left hand, we have a brilliant company that can’t seem to make money and faces the eventual shuttering of its doors. On the right hand we have a company that looks to be healthy in the short term as time starts to run out on its proprietary music delivery method. Somewhere in the middle, these two companies need to meet.
SiriusXM is only going to survive in the long run with a mix of content and technology. The first portion of that is to have original, exclusive content. Their exclusive deals with sports leagues like MLB and the NFL are a great way to start. Having Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, and Ron and Fez is also a part of the equation. So where does the music fit in?
In the age of iPods you aren’t going to compete with an all-encompassing programmed radio station. So imagine if there were no music channels on SiriusXM. No adult contemporary channels. No hardcore punk channels. No hip-hop channels. Instead it was Pandora. Every listener has a few artists or styles and as they ride around in their cars listening to the music and giving minimal feedback, they are creating individualized music stations that will grow and change with them wherever they go.
It would be a big win for SiriusXM. It would be a big win for fans of music to not lose Pandora. Pandora needs subscribers. SiriusXM has subscribers and needs to make sure they futureproof themselves past the whole satellite delivery method. Pandora is a good way to do that.
Sirius-XM Merger Finally Approved
The FCC finally approved the merger of the only two satellite radio services in the country. It is kind of funny that it has taken this long, but we are starting to see the future for this new company. The funny thing is that I am betting it will only have to do with satellites in the very very short term.
The reason? This product.
This, looks like an ordinary wireless router, but it isn’t. This is a mobile wifi router from a company called WAAV. It has been announced already that mobile wifi technology will be available in some of next year’s Chrysler cars. This device grabs the mobile data signals from cellular carriers like AT&T or Sprint and broadcasts it inside your car (and about a 50-100 foot radius outside your car) so you can access the internet on the go. This means laptops, video games, and soon enough wifi radios.
This is an important point because if the internet starts being an accessible network on the road in every car, it will certainly marginalize the need for a lot of satellite technology. All that money that Sirius and XM have spent over the years will seem completely wasted as more and more people stop bothering with satellite antennae.
Then, the new merged Sirius/XM company is no longer anything more than a content company. Instead of selling a technology, they are just selling Oprah, Martha Stewart, Opie and Anthony, Howard Stern, NFL Football and Major League Baseball.
Except those last two will probably stop renewing their contracts with Sirius/XM because they won’t need a middleman to broadcast the radio descriptions of their games straight to consumers. So there is one lost selling point for Sirius/XM.
Also, the Sirius/XM music channels will have stiff competition from Slacker and Pandora that use user data to customize radio stations just for you, not to mention iPods which will easily be connected in any car on the road in the next couple of years. As it stands now, I would guess that at least 50% of cars being produced today have MP3 player functionality, at least by way of headphone jack.
It is through this filter that I find all the debate over Sirius/XM so hilarious. These two companies have done an amazing job developing a technology that will be completely unnecessary in a matter of years. As that happens, the content producers will be able to go directly to the consumers more and more, thus marginalizing the need for a company to consolidate talent into a service platform once and for all.
Does this sound like a monopoly to you? It doesn’t sound like a monopoly to me either.
Hat tip to MisterCrunchy, who actually commented on this site well over a year ago that satellite technology was going to be marginalized and obsolete.
The End of An Over-Reaction
Well, folks, the Janet Jackson / Justin Timberlake nipple-gate-pasty-wardrobe-malfunctioning affair is finally over. The date Justin Timberlake attempted to but really didn’t make Janet Jackson “naked before the end of this song” was February 1st 2004. Yesterday, a Federal Court of Appeals struck down the fine against CBS stations nationwide that totaled $550,000, levied by the seemingly toothless FCC. It makes me happy that the legal process played out this way, but the effects have already been so sweeping that the $550,000 is really the least of the country’s problems. This Janet Jackson nipple has caused sweeping puritanical change in the last 4+ years since it all went down because the FCC was able to get the maximum penalty raised from $27,500 per incident to $500,000 per incident.
Let’s count the ways:
- Television had to institute delays in most live broadcasts
- Television producers stopped pushing the envelope on nudity and language in their programming, even after 10 PM
- Radio tightened up their rules about language. It is to the point now where lawyers for CBS have instructed the Opie and Anthony Show that they can’t say “douche bag,” or “scum bag,” but they are allowed to use the word “douche,” and “scum,” individually. The (over)thinking is that the addition of the word “bag” constitutes a “description of a bodily fluid” and thus potential for FCC fines.
- Howard Stern moved to Sirius Satellite Radio at least partially as a result of the climate created by the event. Within a month of “nipplegate” Clear Channel, a syndicator or Stern’s show, removed Stern from its stations, citing raunchy material.
And who knows how many more examples there are of “standards and practices” departments at networks getting out of control with censorship. And this all went down as the result of an event that was EVENTUALLY OVERRULED IN A FEDERAL APPEALS COURT!
That’s just awesome.
How many comedians, entertainers, writers, and other artists have been stifled in the last 4 years, unnecessarily. The people that live on forever generally push the limits of what we are used to seeing. How much farther have we been set back?
Luckily, I don’t think we have been set back. While these companies were overreacting to the FCC and all the mock outrage over this incident, it has caused other avenues to thrive. Today, some of the most popular shows in the country have existed on HBO, Showtime, FX and other cable outlets that don’t censor themselves. While the networks have spent time nitpicking show creators on their networks, we have had the pleasure of watching the final seasons of The Sopranos, The Wire, Weeds, Dexter, Lucky Louie, Big Love, Rescue Me and what is reportedly the only show that Comedy Central doesn’t censor, South Park.
While the satellite radio companies seem set to merge because of negative economic realities facing the two companies, it isn’t a referendum on the content that the companies tend to put out. It is more a statement about the delivery method that the companies bought into with satellites. Still, as the first “cable” networks for radio, XM and Sirius have thrived content-wise with Opie and Anthony, Howard Stern, Ron and Fez, and others who all do uncensored talk. In addition XM and Sirius have channels that play songs and comedy unaltered for language like terrestrial radio has to play them.
I would like to think that the tightening of rules has actually pushed people to these alternative outlets over the years. So while I think that the reaction to this event was stupid, maybe we will look back at it one day as the catalyst that the U.S. needed to push the boundaries in different directions to places outside of the ridiculous realm of “indecency” that is created and monitored by a governmental group that has almost no checks and balances.
It may have taken more than 4 years, but there is some sense of justice in seeing these fines overturned.
Cleveland Sports Curse Radio Show 2008-02-23
This week we talked about the Cavs’ blockbuster trade.
How Not to Run a Trivia Contest
Over the weekend I was catching up on some Ron and Fez, who are on XM channel 202 weekdays 12-3 pm in the east. They were doing a Pro Wrestling Trivia challenge between two personalities on the channel. The loser would have to dress up like the wrestler Gold Dust and walk around a block of Manhattan that way. Not that it is a big deal or anything, but I was annoyed by the way the contest ran. They had special guest Johnny Fairplay in to do the questions and act as host as Fez went against Opie and Anthony’s employee Sam.
So, I know I am about to micro-analyze a radio bit contest with virtually no real stakes. I know that it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. Hell, the contest ended up with a 10-1 defeat of Fez by Sam which turned into a really funny bit with Eastside Dave smashing Fez continually throughout the rest of the show. But, I just wanted to point out the inequities of the trivia contest format they used.
This is how they ran their challenge on Thursday of last week. They flipped a coin to see who would go first. Johnny Fairplay would ask the first question. If the first person missed it, then the second contestant had a chance to steal. Then the next person would go and if they missed then the other person would have the chance to steal.
There are a couple problems with this method.
Question distribution becomes really really important. If the questions aren’t very fairly organized, you could end up with one contestant having a distinct advantage. I would argue that there must be some intelligence supplied to the question distribution so that you end up with similar subjects for two questions in a row so that there is similar opportunity to both contestants.
For example, if it is the type of question where there are basically two answers, then if the person misses on a 50-50 guess and the two contestants are close to the same knowledge level, then it is like serving up points on a silver platter to the second contestant. Similarly, if a guess by the first contestant gives any kind of clue to the second contestant, again the benefit will go to the stealer.
In terms of question subject matter, if you are going to ask something specific about a storyline in a specific time period, you should probably have two questions covering a very similar time period. If you are going to ask a question about the careers of a personality before they were in the business, you should again try to match up similar time periods and have two questions in a row with some semblance of similarity. Otherwise, you could end up with one person getting a completely different style of question than the other person.
And if the goal of the contest is to find out who knows more about what, that isn’t really the best way to approach it. Probably the best way to do it fairly, while also keeping the contest entertaining for radio is to use the style they used on “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” That involved one contestant answering questions while the other contestant was in a sound-proof booth. Then the second contestant comes in, finds out what number he has to beat and does his best to answer the exact same set of questions as the first contestant. You could argue that there might be some sort of advantage to going first or second, but it is nowhere near as potentially inequitable a system as the first format that was used on the show.
And again, this isn’t a problem so to speak. The show was still really entertaining. I love the show and listen to it every day. I just wanted to geek out on the rules of a trivia contest for a bit. There are tons of people, I would imagine who spend lots of time coming up with equitable ways to determine winners on game shows. I guess I wouldn’t have minded some kind of job doing that. (IE I am a complete and utter geek and nerd sometimes.)
Cleveland Sports Curse Radio Show 2008-01-19
Make sure you log on this morning and check out my radio show on 1540 AM WKNR2 in Cleveland. You can stream it on WKNR’s website by clicking here.
If you miss the show, I will post it later as a podcast.
Today’s topics will include the following.
- The Cleveland State bandwagon is officially open for business after they beat a ranked Butler team this week
- Mike Brown gets an extension
- James Laurinaitis returns to Ohio State for his senior season
- Romeo Crennel seeks an extension
- Shannon Brown blows up the NBA’s development league
- Much, much more
Cleveland Sports Curse Podcast 2008-01-05
This is the first podcast of 2008. There were three participants today. Wood from WKNR2, Antonio Castro and yours truly did about a half hour today on the Browns, Cavaliers and looking ahead to the BCS National Championship on Monday night between Ohio State and LSU down in Louisiana.
This is our last show before we go live next Saturday. That show will be available for streaming on the web and you can call in and contribute if the feeling strikes you. I will be sure to post more info on that later this week.
For now, check out this show.
Cleveland Sports Curse Podcast 2007-12-11
We did another practice show last night. If nothing else, check out the opening where I stutter my way through the plug for my family’s business. Not a very good start. I am hoping as we continue this that Jordan will get comfortable enough to call me out on my bad lines. I figure honesty applies to bad radio as much as it does to good radio.
Also, we recorded this after The Company Line practiced, so you can hear my voice is a little bit roached.
Cleveland Sports Curse on WKNR
I am taking the Cleveland Sports Curse podcast to local AM radio here in association with some advertising I have been doing. As a part of the package, I get to co-host a weekly sports talk radio show sponsored by my family’s business, Lyndall Insurance. Before the show airs officially on January 12th from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM on AM 1540 WKNR2, I have been doing some practice shows with my co-host Jordan Sherwood.
Anyway, here are the first four segments that we did as a show last week.
Cleveland Sports Curse Podcast 1 - Segment 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Cleveland Sports Curse Podcast 1 - Segment 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Cleveland Sports Curse Podcast 1 - Segment 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Cleveland Sports Curse Podcast 1 - Segment 4: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Buying Jim Norton’s Book “Happy Endings”
Yesterday I decided to go out and purchase Jim Norton’s book live and in person rather than wait for a shipment from some fake store on the internets. So, I walked into Borders in a posh Cleveland area shopping center with the pretentious moniker, La Place. After looking around a bit for the book (and finding myself unable to pass up on Chuck Palahniuk’s new book) I was unable to locate Lil Jimmy’s book in the Borders.
That’s when one of the helpful Borders employees asked me if I needed help finding something.
Well, truth be told, I needed some help, but what I would say next needed to be worded carefully. I didn’t really want to tell the Borders employee that, “Yes, in fact, I am looking for a book by Jim Norton entitled “Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch.” While that might have been funny, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
So, I told her I was looking for the new book by comedian Jim Norton. She typed it up in her computer and within earshot of three or four other customers said, “Oh, ‘Happy Endings.’ Let me see if we can find that over here.” I am not sure if the title had completely hit her yet.
But I think the title of the book finally sunk in when she pulled it off the shelf to hand it to me and saw the cover for Lil Jimmy’s book.
