Last week something really big happened in American radio – Howard Stern, the archetypal “Shock Jock” announced that he would be leaving terrestrial radio, and heading to one of the two satellite radio service operators, Sirius Satellite Radio.
This is big news for two reasons. One, Sirius is the smaller of the two competing systems in the States, with XM being the other. Two, it could mark the beginning of the end of major talent appearing on free-to-listen radio.
Both XM and Sirius require you to buy new sets that cost from $100 upwards and then subscribe to their services with offerings of 100+ stations including many different types of music station, all commercial free, as well as speech, sport and news stations. Subscriptions start at around $10 a month.
And XM Radio has just started a few new personality shows too. Opie and Anthony are another pair of shock jocks who found mainstream radio too limiting. Whilst at the other end, Bob Edwards, a journalist of longstanding on public radio in the States, has also moved to XM after being released from his previous job.
Sirius reckon that they’re going to recoup the massive $100 million they’re effectively giving Stern over the next few years.
All very interesting then, but there’s the RIAA that are preventing these new digital devices from being able to output their signal in such a way as it might be recorded. XM actually pulled from the market a device that allowed you to receive satellite radio through your PC. The reason? You could automatically record directly to your PC.
This article also makes interesting reading. You still get the idea that everyone’s running scared of something I’ve been doing for just about three years now – that is to say, recording radio digitally.