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From USA Today, by Jefferson Graham: "Brainstorming about
how to take their company to the next level back in 2003, three
guys in Berkeley, Calif., came up with a crazy notion that a cellphone
was powerful enough to display television
images.
"Potential
partners laughed at first. But in November 2003, Sprint became
the first wireless carrier to offer...MobiTV to  consumers...
The $10-a-month service, now also offered by Cingular, has attracted
500,000 subscribers.
"'I would never bet against the American love affair
with television,' says [Paul] Scanlan, MobiTV's chief operating
officer. "It spans all ages and all demographics. The logical
next step is to be able to watch TV anywhere."
"In a wireless world of nearly 200 million cellphone
subscribers, half a million customers is a drop in the bucket. But
it is about on par with the total audience
for some cable networks. For instance, The Discovery  Channel,
which is carried on MobiTV, averages 445,000 daily viewers on TV
sets...
"This week, wireless industry heavy hitters are in San
Francisco for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association
(CTIA) convention. That's where MobiTV announced that it plans to
expand beyond TV with MobiRadio — 50
satellite music channels — as a separate subscription.
"Music has exploded into the world of portable devices,
but radio on cellphones is currently very
limited. 'People want their local traffic, and local
radio. This is the first step. We'll get there,' says [Phillip]
Alvelda, MobiTV's CEO...
"British research firm Informa Telecoms and Media predicts
that in just five years, there will be more users of broadcast mobile
TV worldwide — 124.8 million
— than there are U.S. TV homes (110 million).
"ABC News Now is one of many channels included with
MobiTV's service, which also includes MSNBC, ESPN and Fox Sports.
"MobiTV is offered by Sprint in three varieties, MobiTV
(which has 27 channels of real-time TV, including MSNBC, CNBC and
ABC News), Sprint TV (fewer
channels) and Sprint TV Live
(slightly different channel lineups).
"Cingular offers MobiTV on 10 phones, including entry-level
free handsets — but for best quality, look at the $269.99 Nokia
6682 or $399 palmOne Treo 650 [pictured right]
smart phone. Kick in another $9.95 for MobiTV and $20 for an unlimited
data plan...
Read
the full article online at USAToday.
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...
I signed up on my Treo 650 the moment I read this story
— a relatively-painless perhaps ten-minute process, including
downloading the MobiTV application, and, by God, it's amazing.
Now my Treo is not only a cell phone, calendar/address
book, digital camera, web browser, MP3 player, e-mail device,
and video camcorder, it's also a shirt-pocket-sized
TV set! It's a more-powerful device than Spock's
original series tricorder!
Righit now, I'm  switching
back and forth between MSNBC and a "Rocky & Bullwinkle"
episode, and it's working flawlessly.
Gorgeous picture, fine sound, decent channel line-up...
This is the best $10/month I've ever spent.
And now, naturally, I'm thinking, "If I can get
TV, I should be able to get radio..."
So I suspect I'll be investigating my options more closely
soon.
...
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There's huge, and
growing, demand among consumers for Internet radio (at least during
the 9AM-5PM workday), as shown by the rapid growth of our AccuRadio project.
AccuRadio features a variety of popular music formats that
you simply can't find on the broadcast dial: Swingin' Pop Standards, Brit
Rock, Piano Jazz, Broadway and more at www.AccuRadio.com.
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From USA TODAY, by David Lieberman: "If
you doubt that entertainment can be a volatile business, consider
what's happening at XM Satellite Radio. The company is sky-high
now. On Tuesday — just four years after it introduced its satellite
radio service — XM announced it has signed up its 5-millionth
customer.
"That's a substantial lead over rival Sirius Satellite
Radio, which has 2.1 million. But this holiday season, which accounts
for about 40% of the year's new satellite radio customers, Sirius
will try to close that gap with a marketing blitz promoting popular
radio shock jock Howard Stern...
"Meanwhile, Apple poses a potential threat to XM sales
among car buyers, who account for about half of new satellite radio
subscribers. Apple projects that nearly a
third of next year's new cars
will have connections into the
car audio system for its iPods.
"XM and Sirius are fighting back with portable satellite
radios — including soon-to-be-released models that also can
store music MP3 files. [Read news about
these models, and controversy surrounding them, in yesterday's issue
of RAIN.]
"At the center of these battles is XM
Chief Executive Hugh Panero... Among his thoughts:
"Q: You have 5 million customers and expect 6 million by
year's end. How high can you go?
"A: We're reinventing radio
the same way cable reinvented television. So hitting 20 million
subscribers by 2010 — some analysts say that satellite radio
could be at 40 to 50 million
by then — is really just a matter of us executing and expanding
the places where satellite radio can go. We want to be everywhere...
"Q: Couldn't all the attention [Howard Stern will] get lead
potential subscribers to focus on Sirius?
"A: Our service is identified with Major League Baseball.
Between 16% and 20% of people who have subscribed, when asked what
piece of content made them choose XM, said 'baseball.' And we're
going to find the same attributes when we introduce hockey in October.
"But what people really love is music. We have 125 music
directors dedicated to putting passion into our music channels.
That's different than our competitor, who
treats it more like FM. And advertising is not part of
our music lineup.
"Q: Lots of people get ad-free music on their iPods. What
happens to satellite radio as automakers roll out models with plugs
for iPods?
"A: ...With XM you can listen to four or five channels
covering the John Roberts hearings, or Fox News or a hurricane-relief
concert. That is the kind of shared community experience that used
to be a hallmark of radio and clearly of television — and that
is unique to our service. And now we've added MP3
capabilities to our devices.
"People who are very busy don't have two hours to sort
through a lot of music. They want someone to be their
concierge service, which is what XM does.
"Q: Technology is always changing. Are you concerned that
others might duplicate what you do and transmit it via cellphone
networks or digital radio signals?
"A: Other technologies will be  out
there trying to figure out how to make it work...We've been talking
to all the cellphone providers about having a place there. We have
a place on the Internet now...
"Q: Have you thought about lowering your subscription price
in order to grow faster?
"A: We actually increased the subscription price in
February from $10 to $12.95 because we had made certain purchases
of content and wanted to invest in content
going forward...
Read the full interview online at USAToday.
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Consultant
Walter Sabo, who
includes Sirius among his clients, reminds us that  as
late as the 1970s, the NAB, didn't accept FM
stations as members because it wasn't
"radio" — an opinon shared by many
in the radio industry at the time.
"Radio is in trouble " is a mantra that only
makes sense if radio is strictly defined as "local AM/FM
radio."
If "radio" is redefined to include satellite-
and Internet-delivered radio, then there's no question the
radio medium is healthier and more
vibrant than ever!
Thus, if I were a radio group head and I wanted to
fix radio's current PR crisis (which was a constant theme
at last week's NAB Radio Show) I would embrace my satellite
brothers so quickly it would make your head spin.
(By the way, if it's true, as USA Today says that Apple
projects, that nearly a third
of next year's new cars will
have connections into the car audio
system for its iPods, that's great
news for Internet radio. It's exactly the mini
jack on the dashboard that's needed to get audio
out of an Internet-enabled mobile device (cell phone, PDA,
or MP3 player) and into a car's speakers.) —
KH
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"...iPods,
streaming and Wi-Fi seemed to dominate just about every session."
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At the very same time the big guys were burying their
corporate heads deeper in the sand, a different group of radio executives
was meeting in St. Louis, and the mood was
dramatically different.
At the Public Radio Program Directors' conference, iPods,
streaming and Wi-Fi seemed to dominate just about every
session. It's  scary
for the non-com folks, too, but they're embracing
it with sober appreciation and trying to see if they can
become part of it before it washes over them.
These stations may not make a profit, but they've been attracting
tens of millions of listener subscriptions for years, proving
that the model works. And if Infinity still thinks people won't pay
for radio, wait 'til they learn the lesson Stern is about to teach
them.
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Ken Davis
Radio Research Consortium
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