Jimmy Schaeffler, Senior Analyst and Chairman for the Carmel Group, is quoted in The Denver Post as saying that a satellite merger makes "a ton of sense."

Now mind you, he's not talking about Satellite Radio... he's talking about Satellite TV (DBS). But that's precisely my point.

"All of a sudden with the telcos involved, you have competition," said Jimmy Schaeffler, senior multichannel analyst for the Carmel Group. "It (a merger) has always made a ton of sense. ... Look at the billions they spend in redundancies."

Note that The Carmel Group has said they have a record of opposing mergers that they deem as "anti-competitive" such as the proposed Sirius-XM merger. They point to their similar opposition to the DirecTV-EchoStar merger as an example of their historical stance.

The DirecTV-EchoStar merger was rejected just 4 years ago. And in this increasing fast-paced media environment, a lot can change in those four years.

Verizon is aggressively rolling out its FiOS TV service, and now has around 500,000 customers. AT&T's U-verse service has more than 40,000 customers in 23 markets. These are two companies that have a massive existing consumer base that they can easily upsell these new services to. With the telcos involved, Schaeffler now appears to see viable competition for both satellite and cable TV providers.

And that's video based services.

Audio services require far less bandwidth, and so the barrier to entry is much lower than video. Take a look at Muzak and DMX - and soon Slacker - who all utilize existing satellites to broadcast their audio content. A company doesn't need to launch satellites to be a satellite player. (That's ignoring the IP-based services from mobile providers... and is there really any difference between 1,300 HD Radio stations and DARS repeater towers?)

My point is that The Carmel Group took the position of opposing the EchoStar-DirecTV merger using the same short-sighted logic that they're applying to the Sirius-XM merger. (Let's not forget: they also took a completely different position on "competition" in a non-NAB commissioned report.)

So what happens in the years to come?

[The Denver Post] 

The Wall Street Journal's Sarah McBride (who is, by far, my favorite reporter in this beat) took an in depth look at the growing space of Internet radio and it's evolution into the untethered space.

Profiling devices like the Sansa Connect, to Pandora's deal with Sprint (and their Wifi device), and of course, Slacker - the WSJ article does a pretty damn good job at looking at this rapidly emerging market. Lest we forget that terrestrial radio isn't sitting idly by, with CBS having recently acquired Last.fm and accounting for some 20% of all online radio listening.

A good chunk of the article is devoted to profiling Slacker as well as their upcoming portable device and satellite-powered car dock. One thing that we learn (well, it's news to me) is that the Slacker satellite "radio" antenna will measure in at about 4-inches. Their satellite service, because it isn't necessarily streaming (more like caching), will not initially feature newscasts, traffic reports or sports scores.

It's a good read if you have a WSJ account.

[Wall Street Journal] 

The New York Post dug through the Southampton town records and has released details on Howard Stern's custom-built mansion currently under construction (pictured).

According to plans filed with the town, the three-level oceanfront mansion measures just over 16,000 square feet, with eight bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a great room, a media room, an attached cabana, a bowling alley and a wine cellar with a tasting room.

Howard Stern and his fiancee, Beth Ostrosky, will share a master bedroom of about 1,500 square feet with a private balcony, an office/study and his-and-hers baths with separate dressing rooms.

Stern reportedly paid $20 million for the vacant 4-acre Southampton property in May 2005.

The grounds will include a seaside pool, a spa and a large stone wall surrounding the house.

I'm jealous. 

[New York Post] 

While women and minorities comprise two-thirds of the population, only one-eighth of full power radio stations are controlled by the same groups. Welcome to Big Radio.

The report, Off the Dial: How Media Consolidation Diminishes Diversity on the Radio gives details on exactly how bad the situation is:

• Women own just 6 percent of all full-power commercial broadcast radio stations, even though they comprise 51 percent of the U.S. population.
• Latinos own just 2.9 percent of all U.S. full-power commercial broadcast radio stations, but they comprise 15 percent of the U.S. population and are the nation’s largest ethnic
  minority group.
  
• African-Americans own only 3.4 percent of this country’s full-power commercial broadcast radio stations, but account for 13 percent of the entire U.S. population.
  

"This study presents fresh and challenging evidence about the lack of female and minority ownership in the radio industry," FCC Commissioner Copps said. "My fervent hope is that we can harness the shame of our failures and recommit ourselves to creating a media that reflects the diversity of the American people."

"Women and people of color have been left off the dial because the FCC has pursued policies that are far off the mark," said Commissioner Adelstein. "It is our legal and moral obligation to promote diversity in the public airwaves."

"Latinos own less than 3 percent of U.S. radio stations but make up 15 percent of the population," said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) who recently came out in favor of the Sirius-XM merger. "These alarming statistics suggest that women and people of color have very few stations available to serve the needs of the community. LULAC urges the FCC to do better."

[View the full report here (PDF) via Free Press] 

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is darn tootin' pissed over a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling yesterday on so called "indecency" on television. The decisions involved incidents where Cher and Nicole Ritchie each used "fleeting expletives" on live broadcasts of music awards shows. Namely the words "fuck" and "shit."

But the decision isn't really the news here. It's Kevin Martin's reaction to the decision, and how obviously pissed he is. The FCC Chair feels that essentially the New York court may have neutered the FCC from enforcing any restrictions on language as a result of this decision. Martin also doesn't hesitate to point to a la carte channel programming as a solution to indecency in the media. Something that cable companies vehemently oppose, but that Sirius-XM have offered up as an option as part of their merger. The satellite radio companies should probably play this card a little harder, clearly outlining their plans for a la carte programming and "family friendly" packages (but suspensions aren't the solution).

Read FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's statement after the jump...

[via The Huffington Post]