NAB Lobbying To Constrain Local Content On Satellite Radio

DJAdapt writes "The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the organization that represents the large radio and television owners, is using its lobbyists, campaign contributions and political influence to have Congress and the Federal Communications Commission limit XM's ability to provide you with 'locally oriented' content, including the new XM Instant Traffic & Weather channels .... this is seriously what our government should be worried about? We're taking a trip back to the 70s, where AM was fighting FM."

BAH

[Inominate]

Oh wow, competition.
Bad. Evil. Unamerican.
XM is with the terrorists!

In English...

[MBCook]

Allow me to put the submission into English for those of you who don't want to do it yourself.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is scared of satellite radio because of it's uncanny ability to provide radio that terrestrial stations are unable to for various reasons. These include good music, choices in music, music stations with a few commercials (as opposed to FM stations playing commercials with some music), higher quality (audio wise) broadcasts, etc. A official of the NAB was not quoted as saying "We're worried that they are good and will put us out of business, but we don't want to change so we'll get the governement to do it for us."

Too bad for them. They could have developed better radio (digital radio) but they didn't untill satellite started to get big. They could have offered more choices, but they decided that one centeralized list of songs for the whole country was easier. They could have given us more kinds of music, but they have decided that giving each city 3 country stations that play nearly the same stuff is choice.

Anyone who votes for this will NOT get my vote in the next election. Not shutting down the RIAA (which is basically a racketerring organisation as far as I can tell) is bad enough, but to shut down something that is actually opening the market that they worked so hard to close would be uncontionable.

Re:In English...

[SpaceLifeForm]

This had a funny odor, and sure enough, Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana is involved.
See this article [cato.org] for more info.

Re:In English...

[TheCabal]

I'm not overly concerned. I had a three month trial subscription when I bought my new car. At least I didn't wind up having to pay $40/month to learn that:

1) XM is just as bad as FM when it comes to what is being played.

2) XM is like expanded cable. To quote Springsteen "57 channels an nothin' on".

3) Because of XM's bad programming, I spent the bulk of my time listening to one of the Comedy Channels. After about a week, I could recite all the routines they were running, as they weren't rotating their con

Re:In English...

[LWATCDR]

This is a little one sided. To get space in the FM band the stations have to at least claim that they are being run in the public intrest. XM does not have that problem. As far as commercials frankly that just ticks me off. Why should have ANY commercials for a channel I am paying for? You have to pay to listen to XM radio.
I like "local" radio. Around here I can get a small town country station. It is a local station and is a lot of fun to listen too. They have a show called Dial N Deal where people call in

Funny

[rigau]

Everytime I see stories about radio issues I dont even bother because I never listen to the radio. I never listen to the radio cause most of it is crap. So I just take my ipod or some CDs with me. One summer my car broke down and took like a month to get fixed and the rental car had no tape or CD player in it so I had to listen to the radio. I basically had it on NPR and the college station the entire month everything else was too plain terrible to bother. The funny thing is that the radio sucks precisely because of what is happening in this story. A bunch of asswipes think that everyone wants to listen to the same crappy music and have created all these stations that play the same tired top 20 music. They kill competition with regulation or with M&A. I hope they lose. More options are needed.

If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR THIS

[Bob_Robertson]

It is not which regulations I object to, it is regulation itself.

Time to realize that if you grant to "government" the power to regulate other people in ways that you like, someone else will use that power to regulate YOU.

The FCC, like the rest of the unconstitutional ways that the Fed.Gov controls your everyday life, must be abolished immediately.

Bob-

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[sadler121]

and how will you keep big mega corperations from drowning out the little guy? or in fact just jamming the little guys single?

I admit that the public airwaves ( among many things )are WAY to regulated. But there needs to be minimal regulation to keep the big guys from stomping all over the little guys.

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[Bob_Robertson]

Simple common law property rights cover this quite well.

Prosecution for signal overlap is just like trespassing. Prove deliberate action to the jury and demand damages and corrective action.

Easement, established right-of-way, and the simple fact that a radio station will want their customers to find them again means that staying on an established frequency will work best for everyone.

One good thing to do is look up the history of radio prior to the establishment of the FCC. Such difficulties as you menti

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[4of12]

Prosecution for signal overlap is just like trespassing.

It's interesting how much of new technology is getting wrapped in terms of property rights, just as the electromagnetic spectrum has become.

I swear, 100 years from now people will assume you have to pay for things that would dumbfound us now.

Pretty much in the same way that aboriginal Americans several centuries ago were confused with European concepts of "land owndership".

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[Planesdragon]

The FCC, like the rest of the unconstitutional ways that the Fed.Gov controls your everyday life, must be abolished immediately.

Not at all. After all, since the Libertarians obviously didn't get the White House or a majority in the Senate or House (do they have ANY congresscritters?) the American people asked for the FCC, and we seem to be quite happy with it.

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[Bob_Robertson]

No matter how repulsive, I have to admit you are historically correct.

Rep. Dr. Ron Paul, Texas, is the only congresscritter who does for the most part fit the bill of "libertarian". You should check him out some time. Quite refreshing.

People indeed do get the government they deserve. What's a few million dead and imprisoned citizens anyway, since it is indeed the government the rest of the people are quite happy with?

Bob-

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[alienw]

The FCC, like the rest of the unconstitutional ways that the Fed.Gov controls your everyday life,

The FCC is unconstitutional? Since when? You may not like it, but it sure as hell isn't unconstitutional.

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[Bob_Robertson]

Then, since the 10th amendment exists, you will show me what paragraph authorizes it?

Where is radio transmission specifically separated from "speech" in the constitution?

If you cannot find it, the power to regulate it does not exist. Doing so is therefore explicitly unconstitutional.

Bob-

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[Bob_Robertson]

You prove my point. Since the 10th amendment exists, in order for the Fed.Gov to "regulate" anything, it has to have that power explicitly granted to it.

Do you remember reading the reasons given by the Federalists as to why a "bill of rights" was not needed?

Just in case you missed that part, one of the reasons was that, since the constitution did explicitly not grant the Fed.Gov the power to, for instance, prohibit certain types of firearms for private use, having an amendment restricting such a power was

Re:If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR TH

[Bob_Robertson]

Again you prove my point.

But maybe I see where you make your mistake. I am an anti-federalist by the definitions of the time. The Federal Constitution does indeed grant far too much power to the central government, and has vague language like the interstate commerce clause which can and has be used to define anything and everything.

So it's not so much that I believe the Bill Of Rights was needed. The Bill of Rights is just paper, and without the spirit to overturn and nullify each and every law that Congr

Many years ago

[smurf975]

They had the same problem in the Netherlands, satelite networks/commercial networks were restricted in many ways.

The got arround that by having there HQ in a foreign country and airing about 1 hour a day in that foreign countries lang. Just to proove they are a foreign broadcaster.

So what if those satelite broadcasters would do the same? I mean set up their HQ in Mexico or something and broadcast on hour a day (in the down hours of course) in spanish. And the rest of the day they could do anything they wanted as Mexico doesn't fall under the FCC. That is if the FCC don't want to engage jammers.

Re:Many years ago

[tommyboyprime]

Yet another way to outsource talent!

This is just another step...

[phoenix.bam!]

America is taking to complete regulate itself into poverty. Like another poster said (And who i should have replied to) XM can just move to Mexico, and still broadcast into the United States, and you know what? That is money that is going to a Mexcian company, not American. Thank the government for recession, and thank the rich CEO's (Like the NYSE making millions to do WHAT exactly?) for taking fat paychecks then outsourcing work to foreign nations just to keep the company's bottom line out of the red.

Re:This is just another step...

[buss_error]

for taking fat paychecks then outsourcing work to foreign nations just to keep the company's bottom line out of the red.

Actually, further into the black would be more like it.

Re:This is just another step...

[/dev/trash]

Well XM could do that, but the US could also push their satelittes back to earth, too.

Big Brother

[Kyle Hamilton]

Dont question big brother i mean the big media groups

Bah...

[ksemlerK]

I don't care if FM has better quality, and broadcasts in stereophonic audio, AM radio just has better programming. AM radio actually takes some intelligence to fully understand, while FM just broadcasts the same old boy-band/country/pop/metal/rap noise. At least AM radio actually carries topics of interest to me, by talk shows such as: Rush Limbaugh, The Sean Hannidy Show The Micheal Savage show, When Radio Was, The Jim Bohannan Show, and Coast To Coast AM. For all I care, FM radio can go to where it was

How can we stop this kind of corruption?

[Anonymous Coward]

When a country increasingly tries to protect the monopolies of special interests by myopic legislation
that is against the best interests of its people, that is a sign that it is on the wrong track in a way that seldom reverses itself.

This self-defeating cronyism has been happening so often in the last few years here in the US that it is creating what several of my friends have started calling the "New Feudalism".

Lets face it, it takes creativity and some serious innovation to make an honest buck these day