I’ve never had anything against shock-jock Howard Stern. He’s witty and most of the stuff he does is just show.<\/p>\n
But a couple of nights ago he was on Larry King suggesting that everyone should subscribe to satellite radio.<\/p>\n
His proposal was that, for $12.95 a month, you could get all this wonderful content. And you’d spend way more than $12.95 just to go to the movies these days. And there’d be no commercials!<\/p>\n
I shuddered.<\/p>\n
That’s almost the exact<\/strong> same argument that the cable industry sold us to get us off broadcast television.<\/p>\n Then the SuperStations came along, and the cable companies didn’t block their local ads. So more cable channels started running ads.<\/p>\n Now we pay way<\/strong> more than the cost of a movie just to watch television– and there are more ads than there ever were on broadcast. And we are paying for the “privilege” of watching them.<\/em><\/p>\n So, Howard, how long before an advertising-driven channel creeps its way into the xmsphere? Something really valid like NFL or Major League Baseball, or just a really popular talk or music program? <\/p>\n How long after that before there are as many ads on satellite radio as there were on broadcast radio?<\/p>\n This isn’t just complaining about advertisments. It’s a possibility that should concern everyone, and here’s why.<\/p>\n If advertising dollars move to the xmsphere (and the cable example suggests that, eventually, they will) then those dollars will not<\/strong> be going to independent broadcast radio. And advertising is their major source of income. The few that survive will be forced to join a conglomerate just to stay afloat. <\/p>\n That means that there will no longer be a delivery method for open, unencumbered, independent speech. You want to listen to your music and talk shows, but you don’t have the cash? Sorry, you’re out of luck. <\/p>\n And while your local broadcast station will still be around, they’re going to say-and-play what the home office tells them to… including the information that influences how you decide to vote.<\/p>\n So $12.95 a month for the privilege of listening to the broadcast that I now get for free? That’s a compelling offer, Howard.<\/p>\n But I have a better one.<\/p>\n Unfortunately I’d need to be on satellite radio to tell you what it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve never had anything against shock-jock Howard Stern. He’s witty and most of the stuff he does is just show. But a couple of nights ago he was on Larry King suggesting that everyone should subscribe to satellite radio. His proposal was that, for $12.95 a month, you could get all this wonderful content. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best","category-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}