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Radio Stations Take Local Angle in Satellite Fight

Posted on: Friday, 13 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Paul Beebe, The Salt Lake Tribune

Jan. 13--With shock jock Howard Stern's move to satellite radio, local stations may have a do- or-die chance to recast what free radio means in Salt Lake City.

"I would call it a wake-up call," said Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, a daily newsletter whose parent company is owned by Clear Channel Communications. "Sirius and XM are reinventing national network radio of the 1930s and 1940s. What Salt Lake radio can do that satellite cannot is be local."

Considering how rapidly satellite is growing, Sirius and XM are betting that the technology will take off, despite the $12.95 per month consumers must pay to tune in. Sirius said last week that its subscriber base had jumped to 3.3 million, up from 300,000 a year ago. XM now has more than 6 million and expects to end this year with more than 9 million subscribers.

Clear Channel, which owns seven stations in Salt Lake, isn't talking about Stern, the self-styled king of all media who moved to Sirius after a public fallout with the San Antonio-based radio chain. Clear Channel dropped Stern's sexually explicit show in 2004 after being fined $495,000 by the Federal Communications Commission. None of the stations that carried Stern was in Utah.

"They don't really have anything to say about Howard Stern," a Clear Channel publicist said. She declined to give her name.

David Simmons, chief executive of Simmons Media Group, which owns 12 stations in Utah, said his programmers are redoubling their efforts to create sharp shows appealing to local tastes. While he didn't offer details, Simmons said his stations will carry programming that will keep most listeners from straying to satellite.

"It emphasizes the importance that our programming has to be compelling, entertaining and focused on the local community. If we continue to do that, there will be a reason to listen to our morning shows than to an iPod or satellite radio," he said.

In fact, traditional broadcasters worry as much about MP3 players, cable radio, the Internet and radio over cell phones as they do about satellite.

On Monday, the same day Stern kicked off his show on two Sirius channels, Clear Channel announced a test launch of music videos on demand on 16 of its radio station Web sites.

"Our notion of radio is getting exploded to cover so many things. So it's important that KSL [in Salt Lake City], for example, stay strongly branded so you'll know exactly what you'll get from those stations when you turn them on," Taylor said.

Salt Lake-based Bonneville International Corp. says it's staying abreast of consumer preferences by embracing new technology that gives listeners more options when they flip on KSL or any of its other 37 stations around the country.

Last week, the media company announced a partnership with the Washington Post to launch a radio news station in the nation's capital that will feature reporters and editors from the newspaper.

The station will also broadcast news and commentary from journalists and others outside the Post.

"Our company was one of the first to embrace high-definition [digital] radio, which has some amazing advantages over traditional radio," Bonneville spokesman Craig Haslam said. "It's like listening to a CD, plus you can broadcast additional programming over the same frequency."

Another Bonneville station in Washington, D.C., is broadcasting two digital channels on the same frequency as its main channel, which carries classical music. One side channel offers an expanded classical menu, including anecdotes about compositions and biographical sketches of music composers. The other channel broadcasts opera music.

"These are all new channels of delivering our product to our audience," Haslam said.

Despite the radio revolution wrought by satellite, it isn't likely that Salt Lake will hear the likes of Howard Stern soon. Local radio executives say they have no plans to rush a Stern-sound-alike onto their airwaves.

"Stern's programming is going to be pretty raunchy. He's going to have an opportunity to do things he couldn't do on [terrestrial] radio. Are people going to want that in their family cars?" Simmons asked.

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Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

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