For better or worse, satellite sounds flow north American channels dominate lineups Canadian artists eye wider audience
Dec. 1, 2005. 01:00 AM GREG QUILL TORONTO STAR ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1133262801048&call_pageid=968867505381&col=969048872038 "Satellite radio is where broadcasting is headed," says Vancouver-based blues man Harry Manx over his car phone on the outskirts of New York City. "If you're an independent artist like me, you'll find an audience there that you'll never get on regular radio in North America. Satellite broadcasting is the future of radio there's so much more choice, no commercials, and a strong, clear signal, particularly now that they're building receivers into cars right on the production line." Manx is one of hundreds of Canadian musicians whose careers have expanded exponentially thanks to American satellite radio systems: Sirius Radio, based in New York, and XM Radio, based in Washington, D.C. In addition to airplay he would never get on conventional radio, Manx was recently heard live in concert on XM, an event that changed his life in both subtle and profound ways. "I met the curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cincinnati, and he told me he was a huge fan because he'd heard me on satellite radio," says Manx. "That's a big deal for an under-the-radar Canadian artist just the fact that he knew my name. "At the Chicago Blues Festival this year, people from the west coast (of America) came to see me play because they'd picked me up on satellite radio so the exposure translates into more fans, more record sales and more gigs." That's the theory, anyway. And thanks to a huge national lobby mounted by independent Canadian musicians, songwriters and other artists who, like Manx, are shut out of Canadian commercial radio's stringent formats, that pitch has apparently won the game. Subscription-based, digital satellite radio is now with us. Two competing operations Sirius Radio Canada (jointly owned by Toronto-based Standard Radio, CBC, and Sirius Radio U.S.) and Canadian Satellite Radio (currently owned by flamboyant Toronto businessman John Bitove, pending the outcome of a recently issued IPO, and XM Radio U.S.) are up and running, just in time for the Christmas rush. There have been long and bitter squabbles over the perils of foreign co-ownership of Canadian broadcasting enterprises, regulatory issues (critics say satellite radio will have a freer rein with programming than commercial radio), and the possibility that Canada's fragile broadcasting infrastructure cannot withstand the dumping of what amounts to a tsunami of American programming via satellite. But the federal broadcast regulator seems convinced the new broadcasting phenomenon will be good for Canadian music, good for the Canadian radio business, and good for those listeners who are willing to pay between $12.99 and $14.99 a month. This is in addition to the price of a pocket-sized digital receiver and antenna package between $80 and $400, depending on the degree of portability and extra bells and whistles. Although the CRTC thinks it has stabilized the playing field by insisting Sirius Canada and CSR/XM offer a minimum of 10 per cent home-grown content on their channel options, as well as 85 per cent Canadian content emphasizing emerging talent on their Canadian music channels, the two services have paid only lip service to music. On the Canadian channels, located at the far north end of the Sirius and XM dials, the primary load is sports, news and current affairs. Sirius Canada will carry four Canadian music channels two in English), while CSR/XM will carry three (one in English). A few subscribers may be willing to part with $13 or $15 a month for Canadian sports and news. But no one's going to part with that kind of money for a very thin slice of ghettoized, unknown Canadian music. The independent music lobby that supported these applications is reeling with shock. It's still early, of course. Managers of both services say they'll expand their Canadian content as subscription bases grow. But there's no denying satellite radio offers listening choices that far exceed those available on commercial Canadian radio about 60 finely programmed music channels in each bundle, with playlists literally 100 times deeper than those of regular radio formats, and 40 or more channels devoted to sports, comedy, news, talk, international public broadcasting services and current affairs. All of them without commercials so far and half of them without annoying jocks disturbing the flow. In crisp, digital stereo. If that sounds like too much radio, it probably is. In reality, subscribers will pre-set a maximum of five preferences out of the 100 available, and flip regularly between them. The rest are ignored or sampled now and then. The implications for conventional radio are hard to predict, and may have been overstated by CHUM Limited and other independent broadcasters in a vain appeal to Cabinet against the CRTC decision to license satellite radio in this country. The two systems aren't mutually exclusive. Toronto radio veteran Bob Mackowycz, one of the architects of the CSR/XM bid, says "commercial radio will certainly have to reinforce its local content and character in the future with `neighbourhood' music programming, personalities, current affairs, culture and news something nationally programmed services can't do." But will radio-on-demand ruin Canadian radio as we know it? That hasn't happened in the U.S., where XM and Sirius have been operating for six years, and boast 10 million subscribers between them, says Mackowycz. Even so, no one in the broadcasting business missed the note of warning in the words of Gary Slaight, Standard Radio president and now co-owner of Sirius Canada, when the bid for satellite radio licences was launched two years ago: "I'd rather eat myself than watch someone else eat me." ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
