I was more talking about the portion of the RF spectrum, the topic of this mailing list, used by their subscribers. I don't need to belabor how difficult it is for would-be providers to enter this market. Lofting a constellation of satellites is still beyond the means of most countries, much less private concerns. How is one to enter this arena? Perhaps XM or Sirius will eventually sell their physical plants, but I can't see that happening soon for the reason you cite. That would definitely not sit well with those natives suddenly island-less. Yet, I do not see the same prohibition against massive price hikes that you do. After all, the survivor can claim to support twice the content. The accuracy of such a claim would be somewhat academic because of subscription contract obligations.
I don't feel for the content providers you list as their audiences are inelastically loyal. I have no trouble imagining the average NASCAR buff pimping out spouse and children to pay for his or her subscription! Then too, there are always other delivery channels. Hold on to your HF radios, my fellow Luddites, because broadband passed the 50% mark in American households late last year. Could it be that the BBC correctly identified the on-coming dreadnaught five years back? Some content CEOs want us to believe that IPTV will break the Internet. They glibly ignore what makes the Internet unique among delivery channels, the very fact that it is NOT a fixed asset. I can illustrate that by borrowing a very flawed analogy. If your tube gets clogged, you can either get a bigger tube or lay down parallel tubes. Either way, there isn't an upper limit except your budget. The RF spectrum, on the other paw, is all too finite. (I bet you wondered how I was going to tie this together.) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Cuff Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 9:37 PM To: Shortwave programming discussion Subject: Re: [Swprograms] Fwd: [ODXA] Sirius and XM Merge Therein lies the debate...the argument will be that the "finite resource" is the space between one's ears and the time afforded to fill that space. Keep in mind this is a highly fixed-asset business. Each new subscriber obtained yields mostly profit -- certainly it yields a lot of cash -- and it would be folly for the surviving operation to hike fees by a large amount. The last thing they want to do is tick off the subscriber base. The real losers in this are the content providers -- NASCAR, NHL, MLB, NFL. No longer will there be a bidding war between two satellite providers. Not that I'm sympathetic to the plight of XM or Sirius. They have only themselves to blame for shelling out beaucoup $$ for Howard Stern and his ilk. It would be poetic justice if the "king of all media" brought about the ruin of said media... Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA USA On 2/19/07, Scott Royall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is nothing but bad news in my view. When does creating another monopoly > controlling a finite resource serve the public trust? > _______________________________________________ Swprograms mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or visit the URL shown above. _______________________________________________ Swprograms mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or visit the URL shown above.
