TUNING IN: AM? FM? Nah. Try satellites hovering above Earth, sending commercial-free music and talk to hungry consumers far below
Mike Roberts
Province
The New York City control room for SIRIUS Satellite Radio’s fleet of three satellites
Satellite radio is being heralded as the greatest technological leap in radio broadcasting since the introduction of the FM radio signal 60 years ago.
With hundreds of ad-free channels of crystal-clear, CD-quality audio to choose from, they say it’s like having 200 MP3 players plugged into your dashboard or clipped to your hip.
So much choice, such great sound, they claim it will forever change the radio landscape in Canada, rattling the mics of AM news-talk, and doing for today’s FM what the CD did for yesteryear’s vinyl.
And — Canada‘s two new providers promise — this second coming of radio will be here in time for Christmas.
SIRIUS and XM boast nearly nine million paid subscribers in the U.S., where satellite radio has been available for four years and has become such a significant player that shock-jock Howard Stern was able to command $500 million US for a five-year deal with SIRIUS. (Stern will be available in Canada on SIRIUS in January.)
The satellite radio model is simple — you buy a receiver and pay a monthly fee and space hardware stationed up to 32,700 kilometres above the Earth beams down more ad-free music, talk, sports, news and info-tainment than any rational radiophile could possibly consume.
SIRIUS Canada and XM Canada, after complying with onerous conditions laid down by the CRTC last June as licensing prerequisites for operating in Canada — conditions that include 85 per cent Canadian content on at least eight Canadian-produced channels and French-language stipulations that have left Canadians with a disproportionate preponderance of Francophone programming — have been scrambling to get their booster networks up and running and their signals on the beam.
Neither provider will commit to a launch date, but their hardware will be in stores Dec. 1, with XM entering the field with Canada‘s only Walkman-style receiver, a fully portable unit retailing for approximately $400. (SIRIUS has two component-style units retailing for less than $100.)
XM Canada will charge $12.99 for a monthly subscription and offer 80 channels to Canadians, including eight new Canadian channels; SIRIUS Canada will charge $14.99 and offer 100 channels, 10 of them made in Canada.
Their uninterrupted signals will be available coast to coast and continent-wide, from the deepest forests to the densest city streets.
“This ain’t radio, man,” says Stephen Tapp, XM Canada president. “This is a totally different world.”
Tapp says he was instantly sold on the technology and the “beautiful, crystal-clear” audio.
“As a music lover myself and a guy who appreciates audio entertainment delivered in a convenient way, this just rang all my bells,” he gushes. “If you’re a music lover, you’re going to have more choice than you know what to do with delivered in a robust and intelligently programmed way.”
SIRIUS Canada president Mark Redmond says he too was an instant convert.
“I love it,” he says. “It sounds great, it’s easy to install for neophytes like myself. The choice is tremendous. There’s just so much variety. I’ve yet to get bored at all, whether it’s comedy or sports or music or talk.
“We’re going like hell right now to get launched for Christmas.”
XM’s Washington, D.C.-based director of engineering, Jean-Pierre Bourgon, says satellite radio is about to take Canada to “a new place.”
“The fact you don’t have to worry about searching for new channels as you’re driving across Canada, that obviously has to have an impact,” he says. “Plus, it’s commercial-free.”
Both XM and SIRIUS believe Canadian consumers are hungry for “deeper and broader” programming choices, and reckon this revolution in radio will make major inroads into the Canadian market.
In the Lower Mainland, where our lacklustre FM programming is typically described in excremental adjectives and commuters can hear the same Nickelback tune on three different stations at the same time, satellite radio is sure to be a hit, says veteran radio DJ David Hawkes.
“Lazy, completely lazy,” is how Hawkes describes the Lower Mainland’s FM offerings.
Hawkes, who has worked for virtually every radio station in town that doesn’t spin country, says rock stations will have to re-think their programming and their ad-to-tunes ratios if they plan to survive satellite’s descent on their market.
“There’s some ruling that’s come from above that if they don’t play the hit-hit-hits from the Top 40, they think people won’t tune in,” fumes Hawkes, now the GM at Vancouver‘s The Plaza nightclub. “Where the reality is, over the long term, people don’t feel the connections to the stations as much.
“There’s no tie-in to the community. It’s always sexy to say, ‘Yeah, you know, we’re just like KROC in Los Angeles, we just pump out the hits and aren’t we irreverent and funny.’ But it comes to a point where you have to serve the community.
“Would it kill them to play a local band once every three hours? No, it wouldn’t actually kill them. Watch out, local radio, start tapping into your community, because if it’s just about playing the hits, they can find cooler hits elsewhere.”
But University of B.C. media professor Donna Logan says it is premature to sound the death knell for terrestrial radio, but she, too, is critical of conventional radio.
Her biggest concern is not music, but the news content typically found on the AM dial.
“What is offered now is certainly not as broad-based or as deep as it once was,” says Logan.
“There is more homogenization in terms of formats. There has been a great diminution, in recent years, in the amount of radio news that gets done in general. Vancouver is one of the better markets but it is not what it once was.”
Logan says for terrestrial radio to survive the invasion of extraterrestrial radio, it is going to have to hyper-localize, focus on news and information that truly matters to local media consumers.
“If they want to stay competitive and be on the dial, they’re going to have to invest in more information and better information on the local scene,” she predicts.
Consumers, says Logan, will come out the winners in the radio war about to begin.
“In terms of the consumer, it just opens up the entire world,” she says. “Radio has always been considered a local medium, but I see that changing.”
Gregg Terrance, president of Indie Pool, an organization that represents 20,000 Canadian artists, believes satellite radio will peel off up to two million Canadians from the terrestrial radio landscape.
But, he says, there are two key factors that will always work in AM/FM radio’s favour.
“One is that it’s local,” he says. “If you want to know if you need to bring an umbrella to work, or how your team did, or local news and events, you tune to local radio.
“And they always have the advantage that it’s free — how many people actually love music that much that they really want to pay a monthly fee?
“There will be some, there will
be thousands, but it’s not the death knell of terrestrial radio.”
WHAT’S OFFERED
SIRIUS Canada will offer 100 channels.
CANCON: Canadian channels include CBC Radio One, CBC Radio Three (indie music and in-depth coverage of Canada‘s cultural scene), Iceberg Radio (commercial-free Canadian rock), Hardcore Sports Radio (sports news and talk), bandeapart (new Francophone pop and rock) and Energie 2 (French-language channel).
SUBSCRIPTION: $14.99/month
COMMERCIAL-FREE MUSIC CHANNELS: 60
BRAGGING RIGHTS: Martha Stewart and Howard Stern.
ATTENTION SPORTS FANS: Thirty NHL games weekly, with extensive NFL and NBA coverage.
XM Canada will offer 80 channels.
CANCON: Canadian channels include Home Ice (hockey talk with well-known commentators and ex-NHL stars Phil Esposito, Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy and Bill Clement), (un)Signed (rock music, featuring emerging Canadian rock artists), Laugh Attack (uncensored comedy channel), Canada 360 (national news and info channel focused on Canadian issues), Air Musique (cutting-edge French tunes) and Franc Parler (French-language news, talk and info and French-language NHL game coverage).
SUBSCRIPTION: $12.99/month
COMMERCIAL-FREE MUSIC CHANNELS: 61
BRAGGING RIGHTS: Ellen DeGeneres and Tyra Banks.
ATTENTION SPORTS FANS: Forty NHL games weekly. XM becomes the exclusive satellite radio home of the NHL in the 2007/2008 season.
Ran with fact box “WHAT’S OFFERED”, which has been appended to the story.
© The Vancouver Province 2005
