CTListener said:
musichead1029 said:
WBAL in Baltimore carries Orioles games. If you want a traffic report during the games, you're going to need an alternate resource. Same thing in New York when WCBS is running the Yankees and you need suburban traffic info. This will be the case in any market where the news outlet carries sporting events.
New York has WINS, so a big FAIL there, sorry.
No apology necessary. I don't know if you're familiar with the New York market visa vis CBS's news stations. WCBS concentrates on news and traffic for the NYC suburbs, WINS concentrates on the city. WBBR is a mixed bag, sometimes pre-empting its traffic when their canned programming from the TV side doesn't provide a break. So if you want traffic for the suburbs, WCBS is your station. Sirius XM's traffic has detailed coverage for the city and the suburbs 24-7, so there is value there.
Besides, I was thinking about morning and afternoon drive, when most people need traffic reports. Baltimore doesn't have CHR, AC or country stations airing traffic reports? Here in market No. 50, Hartford, you can get traffic in the morning and afternoon on at least a half dozen stations, not just news/talk WTIC-AM. The "alternate resource" for traffic emergencies during non-peak hours (which is when WTIC is carrying Red Sox or UConn games) is called FM.
If I'm driving through a city outside of morning and PM drive (for example, traveling on the weekend) and I need traffic, I'd rather punch up the satellite, even if I have to wait a bit, than search the terrestrial dials for 20 minutes. In Baltimore, I know WBAL has regular traffic casts when they're not pre-empted by sports. In Hartford, I'd check WTIC. I use them as backups to the satellite to check for updates. But you can't rely on them 24-7. So I think the traffic channels, even in their reduced capacity, are good to have, especially outside of the drivetimes.
CTListener said:
The real world is the one the FCC is making rules in, not the utopian, libertarian, "all government is bad" world in which you apparently want to live. I don't blame Karmazin for only grudgingly going along with the FCC's terms for forming his little monopoly
Actually, as a consumer, what you call the 'libertarian' world
is the real world. The FCC does nothing for me as a consumer other than bleeding value from a service I'm paying for under the guises of "monopoly" (which, as we've already discussed, it isn't), "fairness" and "diversity" (political constructs, neither of which are actually provided to the consumer). And the salaries and perks of Sirius' executives that you seem concerned about for some reason don't directly affect the consumer either.
Perhaps if you're a Sirius stockholder this might be of some importance. If you work in the industry, the FCC's agenda might be significant. If you work for the government, characterizing a private sector business in terms of class warfare might seem attractive, if not paranoid. But as a consumer, the end product is all that matters. Sirius is providing a product I elect to pay for as a consumer. The FCC is impeding the delivery of that product. In that equation, obviously I side with Sirius. Nothing complicated there.
That said, I'm no fan of Mel Karmazin. He ruined XM, dumbing down the playlists and getting rid of two of my favorite channels, Cross Country and Fine Tuning. A pox on him and his business plan that left no room for me, the listener that wants more than Sirius' FM-grade repetition. His degradation of the service is such that I use it only as a backup if I don't have internet radio available. If I found it necessary to cut my budget, XM would be one of the first things to go. That wasn't the case before the merger.
It's hard to believe SiriXM told the applicants in advance, "Look, we don't want you here, so don't expect us to tell our subscribers that you even exist." Nobody would apply, and SiriXM would be in trouble with the regulators again. So instead we have this announcement and new lineup cards with nary a mention of the leased channels. Infantile playground tactics, if you ask me.
You're making several unfounded assumptions. It's more likely the case that the FCC's approval of the leasing assignments wasn't complete in time to be included in the lineup change rollout. Sirius can easily update the lineup when the lease approvals are finally implemented. If I were Sirius, stuck with bandwidth-consuming programming that my paying customers didn't ask for, I'd still promote it as more channels and more variety.
And certainly lessees would apply regardless of Sirius' promotional efforts, knowing they could promote themselves as having access to Sirius XM's subscriber base, whether or not anyone actually listens (there's no way to accurately measure that outside of PPM markets).
But the channels themselves will likely end up at the bottom of the program guide in grey under the heading "Other", along with the Clear Channel-leased programming. I assume that, like Clear Channel, the political lessees will have the option of running commercials. Satellite radio listeners don't like commercials. Outside of the talk and news channels, XM doesn't run commercials, and doesn't promote leased channels that have commercials. That's not likely to change unless otherwise required by the FCC.
