The year of the digital satellite by Greg Quill
Source : Toronto Star
December 28, 2005
Even the CBC lockout and summer-long absence of a national public radio service (sorry, CBC brass, endless program repeats on Radio One and classical music shuffles on Radio Two don't count, as the fall ratings book proved) couldn't overshadow the big radio story of 2005 - the arrival in Canada of subscriber-based digital satellite radio.
It was three years in the offing, culminating earlier this year in application hearings, approval by the federal broadcast regulator and finally by a lengthy appeal to cabinet against the CRTC decision from rival commercial broadcasters and music rights owners.
Canadian Satellite Radio (co-owned by Washington, D.C.-based XM Radio and Toronto fast-food magnate John Bitove, and now a public company following a successful $55-million share offering) and Sirius Radio (co-owned by New York's Sirius Radio, CBC and Toronto's Standard Radio) went on the air in the first week of December.
It's not too early to venture that satellite radio will change the very nature of Canadian broadcasting from the ground up, as well as the tuning habits of Canadian radio listeners.
It will be another year before the dust settles, but it's not out of line to predict that pay-radio, with its 100-plus channels of music, information, news, sports, talk, and comedy - 90 per cent of it American - will have proven it's worth the $13- to $15-a-month fee, initially at the expense of over-the-air radio operators whose total listening audiences must surely diminish in size as the addiction to the new technology kicks in.
Just how land-based radio adjusts to this awesome new challenge should make for interesting radio times ahead.
Satellite radio has been something of a Trojan horse for the Canadian independent music sector that so vigorously supported the applications. Artists and labels shut out by narrow-niche, commercial pop radio formats expected, perhaps way too ingenuously, that their collective ship would come in with the advent of a 100-channel universe.
Not so. Of the 18 Canadian channels offered by CSR/XM and Sirius, only three carry English-language Canadian music (five are devoted to French-language music), and much of that seems to be on the pop end of the music spectrum, albeit music by largely unknown "developing" acts.
The huge domestic folk/roots music market that is the basis of more than 100 acoustic music festivals across the country every year seems to have been ignored in the initial programming mandate of Canadian satellite radio. Canadian roots music actually appeared to have a greater presence on the American services during the year-long application process than it does now, with the Canadian add-ons.
Moreover, Sirius Canada seems to have underestimated the popularity here of American shock-jock Howard Stern, who makes his debut on the American XM package Jan. 9, but will be deleted in the Canadian package for fears that he may breach the Canadian radio industry's code of ethics.
No one's sure just whether satellite pay-radio will be - or even should be - forced to abide by the same rules as those that govern the custodians of conventional airwaves, deemed public property in this country, but Sirius isn't taking any chances. Stern's show was withdrawn from Canadian commercial radio a couple of years ago after he breached the industry's self-imposed codes.
Contrary to claims made to the CRTC that Canadian licensed satellite radio would shut down the "grey market" - where Canadian subscribers use U.S. mailing addresses to secure the American XM signals, technically an illegal act in Canada but unenforceable - the reality is that Sirius Canada's decision to cut Stern is driving tens of thousands of users right into the subscription base of the American operation.
Elsewhere, a storm of protest is looming over programming changes made in November at CBC Radio One, with the abolition of the popular and longstanding post-lunchtime music program Round Up, and its replacement by Freestyle.
The show is hosted by the chatty team of Kelly Ryan and Cameron Phillips and is billed as "water-cooler fodder at its finest."
Its not-necessarily-Canadian, pop-lite tone and fizzy music play list, and its insubstantial, gossip-friendly information content have offended many public radio supporters, who see the hour-long program as yet another attempt to dumb down the CBC with non-original, ad-hoc programming in an effort to make it more hip and competitive in an age of shortened attention spans and abundant entertainment choices.
They've mounted a national Internet petition at www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stopcbcpop.
The dominant chat in local radio is about whether Erin Davis's return to the morning show on CHFI-FM, from which she was ignominiously dumped three years ago, is shaping up as the coup the station needs.
Yet no one seems to be in deep shock over the recent firing of controversial neo-conservative talk-show host Michael Coren from his nightly slot on CFRB over a staged incident in which he too convincingly mocked obese people. Maybe his listeners have already bought American subscriptions to satellite radio in anticipation of Stern. Satellite radio will change the nature of Canadian broadcasting from the ground up.
