Let the Satellite Radio wars begin
 

Monday morning, 6 AM: Opie & Anthony return to the airwaves after a two-year hiatus, beginning their new show on XM Satellite Radio.

Wednesday morning, 8:30 AM: Howard Stern announces that he's signed a five-year contract to move to Sirius Satellite Radio when his Infinity contract expires fifteen months from now.

Boy, that didn't take long, did it?

Do you get the impression that Howard is going to be ... chafing... till his contract is out??

Also, O&A had to sit out the balance of their Infinity contract, plus an extra time to ride out a no-compete clause. I wonder if Howard has a no-compete in his contract?

I don't think XM can be counted as competitition since it's not broadcast like normal radio. That means any no-compete clauses would be void.

I'm not too interested in Stern, but I do give Satellite Radio a big thumbs-up. I've had Sirius for around three months, now, and I've not once switched on the normal radio for any reason. Uncensored, commercial-free music with a decent selection coupled with good news stations had me hooked. :thumbsup:

He's been chafing for years, frankly. I've heard the first two XM O&A shows, and Stern _has_ to be clawing at the walls in anticipation of having that kind of freedom.

Hard to say about the no-compete, particularly since while O&A made money for Infinity, Stern is their big gun. I expect there will be some legal complications before the smoke clears.

I've held off from Satellite for a few reasons:
* Portability. There's no such thing as a Satellite Walkman yet. If I can take O&A with me in the car, in the office and while walking with a minimum of hassle, I'm interested.

* Waiting to see where O&A would end up, and how their new show would turn out.

* Lack of faith that my own eclectic tastes in music and comedy would be adequately represented on commercial satellite channels.

* I wonder how long it'll be before XM starts trying to crack down on people who are posting O&A shows to USENET newsgroups?

Portability. There's no such thing as a Satellite Walkman yet. If I can take O&A with me in the car, in the office and while walking with a minimum of hassle, I'm interested.

A walkman would be interesting! At the moment, I can take Sirius from the car to inside quite easily and I don't see why you wouldn't be able to listen on a walkman through the terrestrial repeaters. I don't think they have quite the coverage required, and wearing a sat antenna on your head to fill in those dead spots would look a bit... odd.

There are rumors about an XM "walkman" ... basically a Roady unit with a battery pack and a set of headphones with integrated antenna.

Here's how you make money in the stock market. If you had seen this coming, but didn't know whether the winner would be XM or Sirius, just buy both. Today Sirius stock is up 20%... and XM stock, down 3%.

But let's say you thought of it on 2/29/2004 and didn't know when it was gonna happen. It still would have worked! Let's say you bought $100 of XM and $100 of Sirius on 2/29... today, seven months later, they would be worth $250, a 25% gain. In the same period the Nasdaq has been flat or lost a little.

And BTW, Clear Channel stock is down 25% in that same time period... even though they own a small faction of XM.

They are up today, apparently amongst stock buyers who are clueless.

What happens when the FCC decides that cable & satellite TV & satellite radio fall under the purview of their indecency regulations?

Just asking....

A lot of people ask for their money back.

I'd ask for my government back.

Holy crap.

This is either the greatest coup in the history of radio, or a big dive into the tank for O&A.

I haven't yet decided which.

It's a fucked up move on cbs' part. pulling the plug on DLR after only 3 months. granted, he sucks at it, but they signed him to a 24 month deal. they should let him develop his show and audience. watered down O&A only confirms that they fucked up letting Howard get away, and fucked up again trying to sue him.

fucking bunch of fucks.