The very first post on ThePortableConsultant.com was this one about the competitive landscape in Canada’s 21st. century radio industry.

There was a story on Yahoo! Finance recently that caught my eye and I thought it might be time to update. The AP wire story Sirius Widens 4Q Loss to $311.4 Million blames satellite radio company losses at Sirius and XM to the high cost of acquiring listeners.

Sirius and XM are spending heavily to expand their businesses, which charge about $13 a month for dozens of channels of commercial-free music, as well as talk, news and sports.

Sirius reported that its costs for acquiring new subscribers more than doubled to $145.2 million from $64.9 million in the same period a year ago. Its average cost for adding each subscriber, however, fell to $113 from $124 in the same period a year ago.

I’m only an armchair commentator in this area, but I know the Internet offers a better model for gaining and serving listeners. In fact, while writing this post I came across The Bitter Vat, a personal media blog and a story about Motorola’s “better idea” (Motorola Targets Death Stars in Battle for Drive-time Subscriber Dollar) which, sure enough, aims to use the Internet.

Instead of expensive birds, limited by bandwidth and service life, iRadio uses PC-based Internet caching of radio content, which is synced to the handset over USB. The service is been targeted primarily at the drive-time radio market, where the bulk of radio listening occurs. To cater for this market, in-car audio is supported through a Bluetooth adapter for car stereos, compatible with units from vendors such as Pioneer, Alpine, Sony and Kenwood. The interface is expected to retail for USD150, including installation.

Sounds like the podcasting model to me… but there’s more…

To comply with US webcasting legislation, music channels are deleted as soon as they have been listened to, whilst talk shows can be rewound. As well as radio channels, iRadio also supports MP3 playback. In an interview with The Vat, Motorola’s David Ulmer, Director, Marketing, Media Solutions, explained that MP3 files can be played back on the car stereo track by track, forward and back, just as you would on a CD. Multiple playlists can also be created on separate channels. The song’s title and track info are scrolled on the stereo display, however browsing by artist and album is not supported, as this is a limitation of the navigation features on most car stereo units.

Which shows how far American radio must go to appease the powerful entertainment lobby. Podcasters are currently laughing at restrictions like these and I expect the more commercial podcasting ventures can be expected to defend themselves against them when the time comes.

The developers of this service are studying podcasting very closely, too:

Ulmer also explained that podcasting support for the iRadio PC client is “in the pipeline for first quarter”, with details available at http://www.iradionetwork.com/ upon release. The bookmark function can also be used for in-show hyperlinks, which lets a listener interact while listening by pressing their radio’s button for more info or to enter a contest or to vote or purchase something. That action will appear in their PC’s wish list automatically. In another first, iRadio will show exactly how many times a podcast was actually listened to, not just downloaded.

In my life there have been a few radio shows that I wish I could have kept to replay. Not documentaries, but a particular blend of music and commentary. Even with commercial messages I would have replayed such shows several times over the years in ths same manner as an album. But I’m not sure that tracking such replays mesh with my idea of “fair use”. I would not necessarily allowed my firewall to pass such a report back to the originator, just as I deny Windows Media Player to report back to Microsoft.

As the article points out this is yet another channel for independent radio producers… oh, and of course video is a possibility too.

At the very least development of Internet podcasts and vlogs have acted as a proof-of-concept for media interests. In the end, the Internet model(s) may prove to be more than that. They may prove the most efficient platform and the success of future media ventures may depend on how closely they follow the lessons that the Internet offers.

-pmh of ThePortableConsultant.com