PricewaterhouseCoopers released it’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, and interestingly enough they didn’t feel that Satellite Radio is a big threat to Terrestrial Radio’s advertising share, based on the fact that satellite only has minimal advertising right now. Big Radio’s advertising share fell to 63.3% last year from 68.4% in 2000, so they’re losing out somewhere (PwC says to local cable).

They did point out that Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio could hold down terrestrial radio?s advertising growth. If advertising does take off on Satellite Radio, it’ll be with national advertisers (duh) which interestingly enough represents about 20% of Terrestrial?s business.

PwC is forecasting satellite radio subscribers to be 20.5 million strong by 2009.

I just wanted to throw the f-bomb into a post title. One of the freedoms that bloggers have and that the mainstream media doesn’t. Fuck figgidy fuck fuck fuck. Oh right, I did have a point here. ‘Jack’ sucks and it shows Big Radio’s despiration at trying to dig up old formats in hopes to keep your attention. I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Subaru and a couple other car markers are deciding to play both sides of the fence when it comes to supplying Satellite Radio in cars. Can’t blame them, it’s a good idea to give the customer a choice for several reasons. Sure, people from both sides of the XM or SIRIUS camp will want to have exclusive agreements, but don’t you think that interoperability is inevitable?

The Future of Radio asks that question. With the way the deal has played out so, I don’t think either the US or Canada are very excited. Allowing satellite radio in Canada is great, but c’mon, at what cost?

Doing the math on this whole Satellite Radio in Canada deal is real fun I guess. Should CHUM throw down it’s binky and run away crying, that means that Canadian Satellite Radio and Sirius Canada will be mandated to to play 326 hours of Canuck content every day.

I feel like doing some math.

8 Channels required + 24 Hours = 192 Hours/day each broadcaster. Ok cool. That’s 384 Total hours between the two. So since it’s 85% of the channels must be Canadian content, that’s 384 * 0.85 = 326.4!

326.4 Hours of required Canadian content. Niiiice.

Whatever the decision the CRTC makes today, it’ll be likely to be appealed regardless of who wins. Any one of the 3 groups that are bidding for the Canadian broadcasting rights, or one of the Canadian cultural organizations, will probably going to bitch and moan about the decision. Ian Morrison, spokesman for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, says the decision will probably end up before the federal cabinet or Federal Court. The Broadcasting Act offers unhappy applicants either route.

The topic of Canadian content appears to be the big issue, but it’s probably the current conventional broadcasters who are going to make a big stink. Only time will tell I guess.

If the CRTC decides in his favor today, John Bitove, the former co-owner of the Toronto Raptors, said that he’d consider taking his Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR) IPO. CSR is partnered with XM Satellite Radio who has the option to buy one-third of the company as part of the venture.

So this post from Pitpundit came across my radar today and got me a little riled up. Yeah yeah yeah, the obvious debate between Podcasting vs. Satellite Radio has been brought up before (ad-nauseum in some opinions), but Pitpundit’s take is that Podcasting is “superior” to Satellite Radio.

The key reason? “…people prefer to compile their own programming and then consume it when it is convenient.”

Uhhh, right, but how is it that Satellite Radio isn’t capable of doing that? That’s all in the interface. Once all of Satellite’s time-shifting capabilities are ironed out (and they will be soon), you’ve got effortless customization. Podcasting’s benefit isn’t being able to compile programming - but rather to listen to highly targeted content that you wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere.

The way I see it, Podcasting and Satellite aren’t competing. They have a common enemy - Big Radio. We need Satellite Podcasting to exist for the two to really have an impact. To cover micro-markets and mass-markets. I love many Podcasts, while others are like shrapnel to my ears. What I really want is the ease of use that Satellite provides, with true customability. I don’t want hours of preselected Podcasts like Adam Curry’s show (though I understand what he’s trying to do, and it’s a step in the right direction), because it’s not targeted to ME. The Audible/XM deal is getting close, though I’m curious about the interface and the personable micro-market content isn’t there.

No, what we need to stop comparing Podcasting and Satellite, and instead combine the two. Create an interface that allows a Satellite Radio subscriber to select their own individual Podcasts through a single dedicated channel that is stored in the receiver’s memory. When the Podcast is updated, boom, it gets downloaded wherever you are. Nice. And when I want to listen to infinite amounts of music I can just turn the dial. Beautiful. Mass and micro from a simple interface anywhere I go - that’s what I want.

Inside Bay Area has a little news bit on the expanding portability of Satellite Radio. They mention the new deal between XM and Audible to create their AudibleReady/XM Device, and mention the upcoming Xact ReGo for Sirius. OK great.

But even more interesting than any of that is this statement from Jim Collins from SIRIUS Satellite Radio talking about satellite radio integration with cell phones, “We are device agnostic. We are looking to operate on cell phones soon.”

Now, we all know that cellphone integration is the next logical step (though cell companies might want to work on nationwide coverage a little better) and both satellite radio company’s know this. I’m most impressed with the “soon” claim though. The question is, how soon? Sirius’ chipset can’t support the size needed for proper integration, that’s something everyone can admit. But Jim Collins would have said “within the next few years” if it was chipset integration he meant. What if something else is in the works?

What if “operate on cell phones soon” has nothing to do with all out integration - but instead delivery though the already integrated cell phone music services?

Food for thought.

Hey wow, this is a funny little tidbit. Looks like the New York State Broadcasters Association (NYSBA) is sick and tired of all the damn publicity that Satellite Radio has been getting, and gosh-darnit they’re fighting back!

They’re offering a $10,000 prize for the best spots tooting “free” terrestrial radio vs satellite radio - I guess because attempts to do this by Big Radio in the past were lackluster (to put it nicely). The winning spots will be distributed to all New York stations for air-time with a winner announced at NYSBA?s Conference at the end of this month.

Well shit, I need some money and I know the NYSBA reads Orbitcast - so here’s some suggestions:

“Satellite Radio can go F off and suck my C, because NY Radio kicks A. Listen to us - we use letters to express what we really want to say.”

“When you’re in New York you can listen to our stations, but with Satellite Radio you can listen EVERYWHERE and that’s just not cool!”

“New York Radio… We have John Montone!”

“If you’ve had your teeth filled, you can’t pick up Satellite Radio - Ha! Take that!”

“Traffic and Weather together on the 8’s. 20-minute commercial blocks. Identical Top 40 formats throughout all our stations. You can’t get identical templates on Satellite!”

Found on The Future of Radio (awesome site, go check it out)

Got your own coolio NY Radio spot suggestions? Go ahead and post them here. Big Radio needs all the help they can get.