1. The politics of “indecency”
2. The future of Satellite Radio and
3. New technologies ahead
Continued Content Crackdowns
There are a few members of Congress who are in favor of extending the Federal Communication Commission’s authority in regulating indecency on cable and Satellite Radio. Is this likely? Anything is possible in this post-Janet Jackson/Superbowl world of anti-indecency hysteria. If this were to occur, Stern (and other terrestrial radio refuges) would be right back on the firing line again.
Satellite Radio Technology Might Be Eclipsed
The future of Satellite Radio – is it strong? Well, if you judge it by 2005 standards, it looks promising. But, the problem with technology is new developments almost always trump old assumptions.
Take, for instance, Satellite Radio. Even though 10 years ago terrestrial radio knew it was coming (although it didn’t think much of it – I mean who would ever “pay” for radio?), what it didn't count on was the development of streaming audio.
Radio companies did not foresee the advent of thousands of Internet radio stations because it wasn’t until 1995 that RealAudio and the first RealPlayer were first released to the public. And even then, it took a few more years of development for audio transmission over the Internet to become both a reasonable reality both technically and psychologically for listeners. So much a reality that now Arbitron and Comscore Media Metrix provide ratings for the top 3 streamers: America Online's AOLRadio Network, Microsoft’s MSN Radio and WindowsMedia.com, and Live365.com.
Then, just when traditional radio companies thought they had grappled successfully with the threat of Internet streaming by adopting the technology themselves to accentuate their own operations, along came the ability to compress audio into small .mp3 files, Napster, file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, iPods, broadband, smartphones, wireless, and now Podcasting.
But, that just brings us to 2005. Gee: what else could possibly happen (or go wrong)?
(cont...)
