News on satellite was [BC] Country Music plight in top towns

[Rich Wood]

------ At 12:26 AM 9/28/2006, FrankGott at aol.com wrote: -------

>If my employer KQV were to be on satellite it would be a nice potential
>source of NTR.

At this point, the revenue flow would probably be in the other 
direction, much like the services that offer webcasting. Before I 
cancelled my satellite subscriptions there were as many audio based 
all-news channels (not TV audio) as there are cable news networks. 
It's all national stuff. NBC's NIS all news experiment failed even 
though it allowed positions in the clock for local news. To my ears, 
the problem was that local stations didn't have resources comparable 
to NIS and the local stuff sounded amateurish. Another issue is that 
news doesn't have a long TSL. Recall "Give us 22 minutes and we'll 
give you the world" of WINS, New York. Big cume but not much AQH. 
Advertisers generally buy on AQH.

Carrying a local station involves a rat's nest of contractual 
arrangements. Most local AM stations carry top of the hour network 
news. Got to have network approval. The affiliation agreement usually 
specifies a single market. If I'm an ABC affiliate I don't want my 
"exclusive" programming elsewhere in my market, regardless of how it 
gets there. Listeners can get the same news I deliver but without my 
local spots.

Saga Communications has stated it won't take any syndicated show that 
also appears on satellite. That would rule out Air America, ABC and 
loads of other shows, though one of their markets does carry shows 
duplicated on satellite. I guess it's hard to make a hard and fast 
rule. The attitude of the programmers is that if radio stations won't 
carry me, I'll go where I can get distribution. Tiny satellite 
audiences are still better than no coverage in a market, at all.

I believe, as satellite subscriptions increase and they begin showing 
up in Arbitron surveys, more and more stations will reject syndicated 
programming that's duplicated on satellite. Right now, they're not 
significant competition. If the time ever comes that there are as 
many subscriptions as there are AM/FM radios we'll see lots of shows 
having to make a decision between terrestrial distribution or 
satellite. Just like IBUZ we're talking about hundreds of millions of 
receivers. Even with the rock bottom prices of satellite receivers 
they still have the subscription resistance to deal with.

Rich



Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-454-3258