BROADCASTERS LOOKING TO CONGRESS FOR HELP IN KEEPING TRAFFIC REPORTS OFF SATELLITE RADIO Robert Mullins – Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal Traditional radio stations accepted the entry of satellite radio services into their industry because satellite could never be local. A satellite service wouldn't be able to provide news about traffic on Interstate 280, fog rolling in from the coast or the expected high today in San Jose.
But satellite radio is starting to intrude on broadcast radio and stations aren't happy about it.
A bill is pending in the U.S. Congress to restrict satellite radio's ability to localize content. The bill never advanced in the last session of Congress, but its backers are trying again.
The Federal Communications Commission in 1997 granted operating licenses to the country's two satellite radio services -- Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., (NASDAQ: SIRI), of New York City, and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: XMSR), of Washington, D.C. -- with the stipulation that they would only offer a national service.
Over-the-air, or terrestrial, stations wanted to maintain their advantage in the competition for listeners by being able to provide local content in their home markets -- and reap local advertising dollars.
But Sirius and XM both offer localized traffic and weather reports in 20 key markets, including the San Francisco Bay Area.
"We always like people to live up to what they agreed to," said Bill Conway, program manager for the Bay Area stations of Bonneville International Radio Corp., of Salt Lake City.
An XM or Sirius subscriber can be listening to one of the 120-plus channels of music on each service, flip to another satellite channel for traffic and weather, and never have to listen to a terrestrial radio station.
Satellite radio is following the rules, said Don Kelley, a spokesman for Sirius.
"We are allowed to have content of a local nature as long as it is nationwide," Mr. Kelley said.
The satellite channel that carries traffic and weather about San Francisco can be heard in Miami, New York City, or anywhere else Sirius is available. And for that matter, someone driving through the Bay Area can hear traffic and weather reports from Boston, Philadelphia or Los Angeles.
Terrestrial radio stations want satellite practices to stop there.
U. S. Rep. Chip Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, and Gene Green, a Texas Democrat, co-authored the Local Emergency Radio Service Preservation Act of 2005 (HR998), which was reintroduced March 1. It would prohibit satellite services from installing ground-based transmitters, called "repeaters," in major markets to beam specific content to that area. If they used repeaters, then the San Francisco report would only be heard in San Francisco, New York in New York, and so on.
Broadcasters say they are concerned that providing specific content via satellite would be just one step away from selling commercial time on that same service.
But Sirius' Mr. Kelley takes a "Can't we all get along?" approach. "We feel we are a complement to the terrestrial service. We think these two systems will co-exist." |