Mark S.
02-10-2005, 02:18 AM
The beginning of what is bound to be a lengthy process is now upon us.
Starting Monday, the CRTC will look at approving XM, Sirius and CHUM to
provide subscription digital audio services to Canadians. Both XM and
Sirius are planning new Canadian channels to help their applications along
but CHUM can guarantee much more Canadian content being a system exclusive
to Canadians to be built from the ground up. Coverage wise, Sirius provides
the best coverage in Canada, followed by XM. CHUM plans to use Rogers
cellular phone towers to create a terrestrial based digital radio service
and you can expect their coverage to be only where cell phone coverage is.
What do you think the CRTC will decide? Will they approve all three licence
applications without amendment? Will they take coverage over Canadian
content in consideration? Or maybe the CRTC will refuse all three. Maybe
they'll approve XM and Sirius if they agree to have a certain percentage of
Canadian content on ALL channels, not just a few new ones. Even if they are
approved, will the CRTC axe out certain channels? Will the Canadian version
be priced advantageously versus the US service? We could see floods of grey
market subscribers going either way depending on the price difference. The
polls at broadcaster magazine's website were flooded with fans of both XM
and Sirius trying to imply that only their favourite service would become
licenced. It didn't look like CHUM had any fans at all.
I personally wouldn't subscribe to a terrestrial radio service. One of the
reasons I got satellite radio was to be able to have coverage where nothing
else would cover. I drive to places from time to time that have no FM
coverage, let alone cell phone coverage. I think about how often my cell
phone drops out while driving and imagine what it would be like if my
satellite radio dropped out that much. I think that such a system would be
good to the same group of people who would find an electric car useful.
Only people who live in large metropolitan areas who never leave that area.
As for XM, if I were the CRTC, I'd ask them to at least adjust their
footprint to better cover Canada, however this will only accomplish so much.
The biggest downfall to them is having geostationary satellites placed over
the equator so for much of Canada, the satellites are low on the horizon
making mobile reception more difficult. Certainly money will have an
influencing factor on the CRTC so perhaps all will be approved. Only time
will tell, but it is still fun to speculate in the mean time.
--
ALT.RADIO.SATELLITE - Usenet's home for all things Satellite Radio
Ask your news server to add it today!
Starting Monday, the CRTC will look at approving XM, Sirius and CHUM to
provide subscription digital audio services to Canadians. Both XM and
Sirius are planning new Canadian channels to help their applications along
but CHUM can guarantee much more Canadian content being a system exclusive
to Canadians to be built from the ground up. Coverage wise, Sirius provides
the best coverage in Canada, followed by XM. CHUM plans to use Rogers
cellular phone towers to create a terrestrial based digital radio service
and you can expect their coverage to be only where cell phone coverage is.
What do you think the CRTC will decide? Will they approve all three licence
applications without amendment? Will they take coverage over Canadian
content in consideration? Or maybe the CRTC will refuse all three. Maybe
they'll approve XM and Sirius if they agree to have a certain percentage of
Canadian content on ALL channels, not just a few new ones. Even if they are
approved, will the CRTC axe out certain channels? Will the Canadian version
be priced advantageously versus the US service? We could see floods of grey
market subscribers going either way depending on the price difference. The
polls at broadcaster magazine's website were flooded with fans of both XM
and Sirius trying to imply that only their favourite service would become
licenced. It didn't look like CHUM had any fans at all.
I personally wouldn't subscribe to a terrestrial radio service. One of the
reasons I got satellite radio was to be able to have coverage where nothing
else would cover. I drive to places from time to time that have no FM
coverage, let alone cell phone coverage. I think about how often my cell
phone drops out while driving and imagine what it would be like if my
satellite radio dropped out that much. I think that such a system would be
good to the same group of people who would find an electric car useful.
Only people who live in large metropolitan areas who never leave that area.
As for XM, if I were the CRTC, I'd ask them to at least adjust their
footprint to better cover Canada, however this will only accomplish so much.
The biggest downfall to them is having geostationary satellites placed over
the equator so for much of Canada, the satellites are low on the horizon
making mobile reception more difficult. Certainly money will have an
influencing factor on the CRTC so perhaps all will be approved. Only time
will tell, but it is still fun to speculate in the mean time.
--
ALT.RADIO.SATELLITE - Usenet's home for all things Satellite Radio
Ask your news server to add it today!