Saw this over on RAIN few editions ago, but was on vacation so only posting now:
Sirius founder Martine Rothblatt told Fortune Magazine that she believes satellite radio won’t be able to compete with in-car Internet radio. “There’s going to be ever more bandwidth available to distribute content totally via terrestrial cellular infrastructure. And that will leave fewer and fewer unique market attributes to satellite radio,” she said.
Amen, I was saying this for the last 6 years. The last 2 years people are actually starting to believe it.
Actually what I’ve been saying is that satellite’s only hope to survive is to build a very strong online brand and presence. That might mean they’d have to buy other net radio brands to boost their portfolio in addition to their own (well, it’s only 1 company now after the merger).
But it looks like Sirius just may end up becoming irrelevant on its own 5-8 years from now, without even staging a last minute attempt at being relevant. Even if they do, it won’t be Sirius anymore, nor will it be “satellite radio”.
It’d be fine here if there was coverage anywhere other than under a mast. I think a lot of people will still use FM radio in their cars, here at least.
Lets just hope they don’t start lobbying for a bail out and try to force us to buy something we dont want! The market place is a beautiful thing and this is a perfect example of it in action.
I certainly hope that Sirius XM stays relevant. I love it. Great programming, excellent music channels, engaging talk programs (not the least of which is the highly entertaining Howard Stern Show). I know the level of competition is huge and technology is always expanding, creating new and unforeseen possibilities, but it would be great if Sirius is “in addition to” rather than “instead of”. I’d like to see it be one of many options, i.e.: Pandora Radio, iTunes, Sirius, FM radio, and whatever else may come down the pike!