A
AliceTheCook
Guest
First it was local traffic, now XM is about ready to unveil regional news channels. Not local, per se, but geared to geographic regions of the country. This may not seem like much of a threat (it's still not geared to one specific city, so non-voicetracked local radio still has the edge there) but, given time, I'd bet that both Sirius and XM will start offering local channels of news for the largest markets. They threatened to do this quite a while back, and this regional thing is probably the first step...to get their feet wet with doing news (of which Clear Channel, of all companies, is handling much of...cutting their own throats in the process) with a larger plan of attack coming thereafter.
But maybe CC knows something we don't. They invested heavily in satellite radio early on, and now CBS is hinting at buying XM. But let's say you're all-news KTRH in Houston, owned by Clear Channel, and now you're using some of those resources to program a local news channel on XM to cater to Houston. Maybe you'll catch listeners both ways, but I know if I'm paying for satellite, I'm more apt to use satellite for all my listening needs. They've already got me hooked with local traffic; it wouldn't take much to get my business for news as well. The commercial load would be much smaller, for one. Here in Dallas, a CC-programmed local news station could take away share from KRLD and WBAP, which, of course, wouldn't hurt CC one bit.
But maybe CC knows something we don't. They invested heavily in satellite radio early on, and now CBS is hinting at buying XM. But let's say you're all-news KTRH in Houston, owned by Clear Channel, and now you're using some of those resources to program a local news channel on XM to cater to Houston. Maybe you'll catch listeners both ways, but I know if I'm paying for satellite, I'm more apt to use satellite for all my listening needs. They've already got me hooked with local traffic; it wouldn't take much to get my business for news as well. The commercial load would be much smaller, for one. Here in Dallas, a CC-programmed local news station could take away share from KRLD and WBAP, which, of course, wouldn't hurt CC one bit.