Clear Channel idiots think that satellite radio should be held to indency laws. WTF!??
Yesterday it was announced that the United States Department of Justice approved the Sirius and XM Satellite radio merger. While this is good news, the fight is far from over. The deal still has to be approved by the FCC. The Dept of Justice said the merger “won’t hurt consumers”, and that clearly there is competition from traditional radio and even iPods. It took over one year to arrive at this decision, which is one of the longest merger approvals in history. Jim Cramer (host of “Mad Money) is so pissed off he’s holding a crusade against anyone holding up the merger. There have been 4 separate hearings on this merger, and for the last 2 “big oil” mergers there was no hearing for the first and only one hearing for the second.
Why do you think this is? Could it be the fact that the “National Association of Broadcasters” (the NAB) regularly pays millions and millions and millions of dollars in political contributions annually? Could it be the fact that the NAB has an army of lobbyists in Washington? There a terrestrial broadcast radio station in every town in America and this is an election year. Would any politition want to piss off the owners of all these stations in an election year? Here – watch what Cramer has to say first hand:
Are you still a bit skeptical? Maybe this engadget post about Clear Channel wanting the FCC to hold Sirius and XM to indency laws will change your mind. It says they also want “another satellite competitor”, and “zero local programming or advertising”. WTF!!? Big fat Clear Channel has bought up a huge chunk (and maybe the bulk) of America’s traditional broadcast radio stations in the last so many years. Now when “something better comes along” they want to “regulate it” and spank it to death so it doesn’t impact them. What kind of petty whining in the new media world is this? Microsoft beat the hell out of Netscape the better part of a decade ago and you didn’t see them pining to the government. You didn’t see 4 hearings just so Google could buy YouTube. This is about as bad as the big oil companies making “record profits” the year of the Katrina hurricane, or big tobacco saying that cigarettes aren’t addictive. It’s as bad as that!
I’ve been angry about satellite radio from the very beginning because the NAB has had it out for them since the inception of XM and Sirius. Did you know that traditional broadcast radio PAYS NO ROYALTIES at all to artists and musicians? That’s right – nothing, nada, zip! Television pays, movies, pay, cable pays, many documentaries have problems getting made because of the steep royalty fees. If you make a documentary about dying cancer victims and one of them sings on camera “I Can’t Get No – Satisfaction” for 2 seconds – they have to pay a royalty or that film will never see the light of day. But terrestrial radio can play the entire Rolling Stones catalog for free, every bit of it. It’s always been a handshake gentleman’s agreement between the recording industry and the radio stations. You give us free music, and you’ll benefit from us playing it. But even that agreement soured in recent years from the fact that radio stations were caught in a payola scandal.
So when satellite radio was born, the NAB made sure that there would be no way in hell they could play music for free too. Do you know that the initial model for satellite radio was to be a commercial based service? There was going to be no montly fees at all, you would just buy a radio and listen. But the NAB lobbied the government to force them to pay music royalties and XM was forced to pony up 100 million before they even sold their first radio. This forced them to go to the subscription based model, and it would seem that the “no commercials” format (preferred by customers) has now big the NAB in the ass because they made lemons out of their lemonade.
I can only hope that this BS will not last much longer, but it’s hard to say since the FCC is now involved. Clear Channel must be morons to think that satellite radio should be regulated with “indecency laws”. I pay a montly subscription fee for my satellite radio and I’ll be damned if the government can tell me what’s decent or not for my money. Whether you like Howard Stern or not, you can’t seriously think that the government should have the ability to tell you what you can and cannot listen to. This is probably one of the only ways that radio compares to cable. The reason I can watch “Real Sex” or “Dave Chapelle” any time I want on HBO is because I pay a montly fee for that programming. If I don’t like it I can unsubscribe or turn it off, but the government does not have the ability to tell me that I can’t have it.
I’m sure you have an opinion – what do you say about all this?
