Category: Radio

Sirius’ hefty talent deals are “scary”: CEO
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. CEO Mel Karmazin said Tuesday it was “scary” paying huge amounts to secure Howard Stern, the NFL, NASCAR and other high-profile programming, but still well worth it.
“It’s scary how much they cost, but I would rather have them and find a way to make money with them rather than compete against them,” Karmazin said at the Sports Business Journal’s annual World Congress of Sports event.
Stern’s deal is worth $500 million over five years. Despite the big bucks, Karmazin said he met with Stern on Monday to try to get him to extend his term with similar pay structure.
“He wasn’t interested,” Karmazin said. “He’ll take his chances when the contract is up.”
Karmazin joined Sirius in 2004 after a long career in traditional radio that culminated in a turn as president and chief operating officer of Viacom Inc. In that time, he has seen Sirius’ subscriber base grow and snagged Stern from Viacom’s CBS unit.
Stern’s old employer recently sued the shock-jock, his agent Don Buchwald and Sirius for alleged breach of contract and fraud stemming from his much-ballyhooed move to satellite in January. The suit, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, was described by Stern as “a personal vendetta” launched by CBS chief Leslie Moonves in response to the network’s sagging radio fortunes since Stern left.
Karmazin said the lawsuit only served to put Stern back on the front page.
“The last thing I would want to talk about today is Howard Stern,” Karmazin said. “But I’m sure CBS had its reasons.”
Karmazin was interviewed onstage at the Pierre Hotel event by noted media journalist-analyst Jack Myers.
He said that sports, along with Stern, are a major driver of subscriptions to satellite radio.
While Sirius and its bigger competitor, XM Satellite Radio, are locked in a battle for subscribers, Karmazin said the more important battle is for the entire field of satellite radio.
“This is not about us vs. them,” he said. “It’s about satellite radio.”
He said terrestrial radio would be good for free cash flow. “It’s just not going to grow much,” he added.
Sirius, based in New York, reported a widened net loss of $311.4 million in the fourth quarter, due to a surge in promotional costs for the holiday season in the weeks before Stern’s arrival. Revenue tripled to $80.0 million.

Sirius Satellite tops 4 million subscribers
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. on Monday said it recently surpassed 4 million subscribers to its nationwide pay radio service.
Sirius, No. 2 in the nascent market to rival XM Satellite Radio Inc., had previously said it ended 2005 with 3.3 million subscribers, an increase of 2.2 million, and expects to end 2006 with more than 6 million subscribers.
XM in February said it has more than 6 million subscribers and expects to reach 9 million by the end of the year.
Both services offer continuous sports, talk, and entertainment programming, including dozens of commercial-free music stations, all for about $13 a month.
Sirius’ news follows its announcement on Friday that it reached a deal with music companies Warner Music Group Corp. and Vivendi Universal SA’s Universal Music Group to allow their songs to be played on a new radio unit that can store songs for future playback.
Under the pact, Sirius will pay a fee for each unit of its new S50 radio device that it sells, according to officials from the three companies.
Shares of Sirius rose 31 cents, or 6.3 percent, $5.20 in early trade on Nasdaq. XM shares rose 42 cents, or 2 percent, to $21.16.

Radio group calls for ‘smarter, more effective’ CRTC policy
New technologies like satellite radio and digital players are changing the traditional radio landscape and the industry says it wants help from the CRTC to survive.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had called for submissions that would be considered in its current review of the country’s commercial radio policy.
A number of groups, including the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, filed written submissions before the broadcast regulator’s midnight deadline on Wednesday.
The landscape has dramatically changed since the last commercial radio review, the broadcast group says in its submission.
“We no longer have one single and regulated system of radio services delivered over the public airwaves and free of charge to Canadians. Instead, we have both a regulated system of the past and a largely unregulated, parallel system of new delivery platforms for audio content,” the CAB said.
“Canadian private radio is confronted with an unheard-of array of competition for listeners and for revenues.”
The existence of these new competitors does not necessarily mean that more regulation is required from the CRTC, the group said, “but rather that smarter and more effective regulation needs to be designed.”
The group believes that traditional radio could lose between 4.9 and 8.5 per cent of its listeners by 2010, with revenue losses of between $13 million and $39 million.
The CRTC has said that the rapid changes in digital technologies and distribution of media √± such as music and other programming√± have “presented the radio industry with new opportunities, but also new challenges.”
It cited satellite radio, file-sharing and downloading, podcasting and audio streaming on the internet as “new and more flexible alternatives to the traditional practices of purchasing recorded music and listening to radio broadcasting.”
The goal of the upcoming review is to examine the effectiveness of the 1998 policy, develop new measures to support a strong commercial radio industry that reflects Canada’s diversity and local cultures, make the transition to digital transmission and benefit from new and emerging platforms for distribution, the CRTC said.
The CRTC has scheduled public hearings this spring in Gatineau, Que. as part of the review. A report, including any regulation changes,is expected later this year or in early 2007.
Originally set for 2003, the review of Canada’s commercial radio policy was postponed so that that the CRTC could deal with the applications to introduce satellite radio to Canada.

AIR AMERICA TUNED OUT?
Air America is close to losing its New York flagship station – knocking Al Franken and his liberal colleagues off the air on their second anniversary.
The network has a two-year lease with WLIB (AM 1190) that is reportedly set to expire April 1 – and at least one reliable report says it is “extremely likely” the deal will not be renewed.
Losing its New York outlet would be a serious blow to the fledgling liberal radio network. “Radio Equalizer” blogger Brian Maloney – who blew the whistle on questionable loans to the lefty network last year – published the first report that WLIB was on the verge of evicting Air America some time soon.
Air America’s options for a new home are not promising. All of the city’s other strong-signal stations are spoken for, leaving only weak-signal “fringe” stations that do not cover the entire city and suburbs.
Air America parent Piquant LLC has reportedly been paying Inner City Broadcasting – controlled by former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and his son, Pierre – $2.5 million a year to air Franken and others.
An Air America spokeswoman told The Post, “It’s business as usual,” and declined further comment.
Air America got unwanted headlines last year when it was learned that previous management had received what investigators called an “inappropriate” $875,000 loan – since repaid – from a Bronx charity.
Calls to Inner City execs were not returned.
The leading contenders to take over the WLIB lease are former Clear Channel exec Randy Michaels, who syndicates competing lefty talker Ed Schultz, and the new Radio One black-focused talk network that includes Rev. Al Sharpton.

Winfrey Signs Deal With XM Satellite Radio
NEW YORK – Oprah Winfrey has signed a three-year, $55 million deal with XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. to launch a new radio channel beginning in September, Winfrey and XM announced Thursday.
The new channel, “Oprah & Friends,” will air programming on fitness, health and self-improvement topics with personalities that appear on Winfrey’s TV program, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” as well as in O, The Oprah Magazine. It will also feature a weekly radio show with Winfrey and Gayle King, a frequent guest on her TV show.
The $55 million deal is a far cry from the five-year, cash-and-stock deal that rival satellite radio-broadcaster Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. has with morning shock jock Howard Stern. Originally worth $500 million when it was signed in 2004, Stern’s deal is now worth $600 million due to appreciation of Sirius’ stock price. XM also has signed other big programming contracts, including an 11-year, $650 million deal for Major League Baseball.
Winfrey’s new channel on XM will feature personalities that appear on her show and in her magazine including Bob Greene, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Nate Berkus.
The Winfrey news and an unrelated positive analyst report helped send XM’s shares up $1.74, or 7 percent, to $26.35 in heavy trading Thursday morning on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Sirius’ shares edged up 3 cents to $6.01, also on the Nasdaq.
XM and Sirius are locked in a fierce competition to sign up programming and new subscribers as they both strive to reach profitability. Each service costs about $13 a month and offers dozens of channels of commercial-free music as well as other channels of talk and news.
XM, which is based in Washington, D.C., is the larger of the two, with more than 6 million subscribers, while the New York-based Sirius has more than 3 million.

Armstrong pays tribute to ex-fiancee Crow on his radio show
NEW YORK (AP) √≥ Lance Armstrong closed his weekly satellite radio show on a bittersweet note by playing ex-fiancee Sheryl Crow’s song Letter To God.
The seven-time Tour De France winner and the Grammy-winning rocker announced their breakup in a joint statement last week after “much thought and consideration,” despite their “deep love and respect.”
Armstrong acknowledged the split in his Sunday night talk show, “Armstrong Radio,” on the Sirius Satellite Radio channel “Faction,” saying he was “torn it didn’t work out.”
“Obviously, this week was a rough week for us, but that doesn’t change the fact that Sheryl is an unbelievable lady, one of the smartest, wisest, most gifted people I’ve ever met and a person that I can honestly say has shown me a love that I never knew,” he said.
“It’s only fair that I say that, and it’s only fair that we play one of her songs tonight and not run from the situation.”
Crowe, 43, has called Armstrong, 34, the inspiration for her last album, Wildflower, which was released in September.
They announced their engagement in September. It would have been her first marriage and his second. He has three children from a previous marriage.
Following the breakup announcement, Armstrong reportedly canceled his scheduled appearance as a presenter at the 48th annual Grammy Awards on Wednesday. A call to the Recording Academy by The Associated Press was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Crowe is up for three Grammys: best pop vocal album (Wildflower ), best female pop vocal performance for Good Is Good and best country collaboration with vocals for Building Bridges.

Howard Stern’s brand of shock radio hits Canadian satellite airwaves
TORONTO (AP) √≥ Shock jock Howard Stern’s Sirius satellite radio show made its belated Canadian debut Monday, with a lengthy discussion about the Super Bowl followed by the usual raunchy fare and his assertion that the Canadian government is no fan of his brand of entertainment.
Stern’s arrival on Sirius Canada came nearly a month after his U.S. debut.
“That whole Canadian Sirius thing is weird,” he said. “Like on the one hand they want us because they know that we sell radios, but on the other hand they kinda want to keep us low key because the Canadian government hates us.”
Stern sidekick Robin Quivers observed that the Canadian carrier didn’t want to have to field expected complaints from listeners.
The talk show had no shortage of profanity and political incorrectness. There were also commercials despite Sirius being a subscription-based service.
The self-proclaimed King of all Media was dropped by CHOM-FM in Montreal in 1998 and in 2001 by Q-107 in Toronto after thousands of complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council √≥ the industry’s voluntary watchdog agency.
Sirius Canada has said it does not expect Stern to run into censorship trouble this time because his satellite show is a pay service and has developed special lockout technology for customers.
But a representative for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has said that any abuse of human rights under the Broadcasting Act would still be investigated if there are complaints.
Sirius Canada is 40% owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., 40% by Standard Radio and 20 per cent by Sirius in the United States.
Stern announced last year that he was jumping from conventional radio to satellite to avoid the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. He’s also taken potshots in the past at Canadian regulatory bureaucrats he said lacked a sense of humor.

Sirius Canada adds Howard Stern
TORONTO (CP) – The self-proclaimed King of All Media will be heard via satellite radio in Canada after all, starting Monday morning.
Sirius Canada has confirmed that controversial U.S. radio host Howard Stern will be included as part of the company’s 100-channel lineup. Stern debuted on Sirius in the U.S. on Jan. 9 but was not initially included in the Canadian lineup. Sirius Canada launched its subscription service in early December.
In Canada, Stern will be heard on Howard One, but a second channel the shock jock programs with other on-air personalities will not be available here.
Mark Redmond, Sirius Canada president and CEO, said Wednesday that Stern was clearly a powerful force in the entertainment world and that while “he’s not to everybody’s taste” it was time to add him to the lineup.
Declaring he was tired of censorship, Stern abandoned over-the-air radio to elude the scrutiny of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission which had come down hard on his brand of raunchy content.
Redmond plays down reports that because of the nearly one-month delay in launching Stern in Canada, his company may have lost thousands of potential subscribers to the grey market – consumers buying U.S.-made receivers and activating them with a fake U.S. address.
“I don’t know how big the grey market is,” he says. “I don’t think anybody really knows.
“At this point we’re more concerned with addressing future subscribers.”
Redmond also dismisses suggestions that Stern’s program will run afoul of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council or the CRTC, explaining that there are three levels of control. First, it’s a pay service; second, there are parental controls on the receivers that can be used to block channels; and third, the service can be purchased with or without Sirius Canada’s six channels of “mature” content, including Stern, with no change in price.
Ron Cohen, national chair of the broadcast standards council – the industry’s voluntary watchdog agency – says he’s not expecting to get many consumer complaints upon which to act.
Pay radio, like pay TV, will be held to more relaxed standards than over-the-air fare – but there will still be standards, says Cohen.
“Sirius is a member of the CBSC and if there are any complaints we will deal with those,” he says, stressing that Stern will not have carte blanche when it comes to abusive comment.
Sirius Canada is co-owned by the U.S. Sirius satellite company, the CBC and Standard Radio.
A Sirius Canada spokesman says there had been some temporary shortages of receivers in some stores but that they are now readily available.
Stern has already had a checkered history on Canadian radio. Rock stations in Toronto and Montreal imported his syndicated show in the 1990s in a ratings-boosting effort. Complaints from the broadcast standards council, however, led to Stern’s show being put on a tape delay with heavy censorship. Although he delivered on ratings initially, Stern was eventually dropped altogether by CHOM-FM in Montreal and Q-107 in Toronto.
Stern also levelled a few volleys at Canadian bureaucrats at the time.
“They’re French,” he once said. “And you know what happens when someone comes down on them. They run!”
Stephen Tapp, president of Sirius’s competitor XM Canada, says Stern is already a proven failure in Canada, having been pulled off both radio and TV.
“We wouldn’t want the future of our company resting on just one guy and one show, especially if he’s got a track record like he has in Canada,” says Tapp, who insists that’s not just sour grapes.
He recalls when Stern’s syndicated TV show aired on Citytv, the ratings started out OK, then died because people lost interest.
“If people didn’t want to listen to him or watch him before in Canada, we don’t think they’re going to want to pay for him.”
In the past, when asked why Sirius Canada didn’t opt to carry Stern from the beginning, Redmond said only that they would be assessing the demand in the marketplace. “In the normal course of our business we will be continually reviewing our channel lineup.”

Sirius, XM expose Canadian acts to Americans
TORONTO (Billboard) – Canadian acts picking up airplay on the country’s new satellite-based subscription radio services are also getting much-coveted U.S. exposure.
Sirius Canada launched December 1, with XM Canada following December 12.
Sirius Canada is a partnership among Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Toronto-based Standard Broadcasting Corp. and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio. It offers 100 channels for a monthly subscription price of $14.99 Canadian ($12.85).
Its package includes 10 Canadian-produced channels, with four of them dedicated to music: English-language Iceberg Radio and CBC Radio 3 and French-language Rock Velours and Energie 2. The music channels are all available to Sirius subscribers in the United States.
XM Canada is operated by publicly traded Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings with a minority stake held by Washington, D.C.-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings. Its $12.99 Canadian ($11.14) monthly package contains 80 channels, eight of them Canadian-produced.
All of its Canadian channels can be heard on XM’s U.S. service. They include three music strands: the English-language outlet Unsigned and French-language Air Musique and Sur Route.
“XM and Sirius are being aggressive in seeking domestic content,” says Derrick Ross, EMI Music Canada VP of national promotion and media relations.
Among the acts being heard on XM’s triple A-based Unsigned are alternative acts Broken Social Scene, the Novaks, Metric and Luke Doucet. Sirius’ triple-A/Americana-styled Iceberg has been playing roots-based Blackie & the Rodeo Kings and singer/songwriters Feist and Colin Linden.
“XM Canada has really gotten behind the Novaks, and, to a lesser extent, Luke Doucet,” Warner Music Canada VP of radio promotion Steve Coady says. “These are acts on labels we distribute that we were struggling to get airplay on.”
With Unsigned, XM Canada VP of programming Ross Davies says he is “discovering this incredible depth of music that hasn’t been played before on Canadian radio.”
Sources at XM and Sirius say that subscriptions at both Canadian operations are running ahead of expectations, but the companies decline to provide details.
“In Canada, there aren’t many people listening yet,” Standard Radio president Gary Slaight admits. “Most of the people listening to us are in the U.S. The big benefit right now for Canadian acts is in the United States.”
Coady says, “I suspect the effect in the U.S. will be apparent as artists start getting hits on their Web sites from Oklahoma City or elsewhere.”
But according to Iceberg program manager Liz Janik, Canadian labels are not yet taking advantage of the two satellite companies reaching “over 3 million subscribers on Sirius in the U.S. and almost 6 million on XM there.”
With a few exceptions, she says, “the Canadian labels are asleep at the wheel” with servicing.
Broadcast regulator the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission granted the two satellite licenses in June 2005.
Under their license terms, the satellite providers can carry less Canadian content than commercial radio overall, but must offer at least eight Canadian-produced channels with 85% Canadian programming. They can also have a maximum of nine U.S.-based channels for each Canadian channel.
That ruling looks likely to be a central topic at hearings during the review of commercial radio slated to start May 15 in Ottawa. The Canadian Assn. of Broadcasters has said it will push for modifying Canadian content quotas at the review.
“Heading into the review of radio, we’re very concerned how the satellite decision will (have an) impact on Canadian content levels,” says Cori Ferguson, executive director of the Canadian Independent Record Production Assn.
Sources say that media spillover from Howard Stern’s launch on Sirius in the United States has increased awareness of the satellite broadcaster in Canada.
However, Sirius Canada does not carry Stern, and it seems unlikely he will be heard in Canada anytime soon.
Under the satellite licenses, XM Canada and Sirius Canada’s programming falls under CRTC radio regulations dealing with abusive comment. Both services also have to abide by the standards and codes of the Broadcast Standards Council.
“If there was complaint over Stern, and the Broadcast Standards Council found the programming in contravention to their codes, Sirius would have a big headache,” one source notes.
“I don’t think it would be a problem,” Slaight counters. “People have to pay for service and can opt out of a channel. We’re still evaluating the channel lineup and how Howard is doing in the U.S.”

Howard Stern Makes Debut on Satellite
NEW YORK РHoward Stern began his new satellite radio show on Monday by putting to rest rumors that he got married to his longtime girlfriend, model Beth Ostrosky ó in a comment complete with a federally banned expletive.
“I am not married. It’s a nice feeling that we get along great. We’re very happy and I don’t want to (blank) it up,” said Stern, who is finally free of government decency laws on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Stern has promised everything from stripper poles to live sex on his new show. His deal could be worth up to $500 million over five years to headline two Sirius channels.
At the start of the show Monday, Stern dished up some phone sex with Playboy bunny Heidi Cortez, who has her own phone-sex nighttime show lined up on Sirius.
Stern also introduced George Takei as his new on-air personality. Takei, who played Sulu on “Star Trek” and who last year publicly said he is gay, will serve as announcer. After the first week, he will record segments for the show but will not be in the studio.
“The revolution has begun” in new radio, Takei said Monday.
Even before his first day on the job, the shock jock recruited listeners for the $13-per-month service: Its audience expanded from 600,000 to 2.2 million subscribers after Stern announced his switch last year.
That’s hardly a surprise. Stern’s wildly popular syndicated show proved a cash cow for Infinity Broadcasting, raking in about $100 million in annual advertising revenues and capturing 12 million listeners with raunchy, boundary-pushing programming.
Stern had frequently tested and sparred with the regulatory Federal Communications Commission during his 25-year run on the public airwaves, often having his morning show interrupted by censors.
Weeks after Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” Clear Channel yanked Stern from six stations amid an FCC crackdown. Stern signed with Sirius five months later.
“I thought Clear Channel and companies like that were going to fight the FCC,” Stern, 51, told the Associated Press last month. “I kept hanging around. And they never fought back. … They are cowards. They bow, and they deserve to be destroyed.”
On Monday, caller after caller wished Stern luck ó and he reacted with annoyance.
“I’ve been doing years and years of shows but I get irritated when people wish me luck,” he said. “You should have wished me luck 25 years ago.”
Stern broadcast his last FM radio show on Dec. 16 as thousands of fans gathered outside his New York City studio.