IPod vs. Satellite Radio: The Battle For Consumers' Hearts

The disruptive capabilities of technology are once again being put to the test as we see Apple’s iPod face the Satellite Radio industry. Who will emerge victorious in this battle to the death? Which technology will gain enough consumer support to survive?

Analysts and technology savvy bloggers have been on their toes carefully documenting each step in the fight, making wild assumptions and absurd predictions. But in the end, the rational thinkers will prevail, and we will see that there is actually no battle of technologies. No single winner of the hearts and ears of all consumers. There is of course a lot of competition, but in the end, both technologies will be mainstream.

The consumers will choose
For those consumers who have the time, money and desire to download a weeks worth of songs and listen to them each day, you have the iPod. Now with video iPods, iPhones, and many cars coming standard with mp3 player jacks, the technology is becoming even easier to integrate into every aspect of our lives. With over 100 million iPods sold, not to mention millions of other mp3 players, obviously the concept has great appeal. But as wonderful as this seems, it certainly doesn’t appeal to everybody.

Personally, and I know I’m not alone here, I don’t have time to download a thousand songs onto a personal music player, iPod or other. And at 99 cents per song I don’t really have the budget either (although I could always go the shady, free download route). Most importantly however, I just don’t want to continuously listen to the same songs I have already downloaded. Over the years I’ve amassed thousands of songs on my PC, but I still want even more variety. I would rather pay a set subscription fee to Sirius or XM Satellite Radio and have a hundred different radio channels, each playing a different genre of music, not to mention live news and talk shows. Also, as opposed to traditional radio, the content is mostly commercial free.

The radio star lives!
Which brings me to another point. For those consumers who choose not to spend a dime and still want to enjoy music and talk shows, they can still listen to traditional broadcast radio. There are literally billions of radio receivers in America and thousands of radio stations spanning the country. Radio was a technology that was supposed to dwindle with the advent of modern televisions and video entertainment. Obviously this has not happened. “Video killed the radio star”… I think not.

Use history as a guide
You can have a DVD player with a huge movie library, yet still watch regular television and cable, and still go out to the movies every couple of weeks. Obviously when you get down to consumer entertainment desires, we see that more than one medium can exist. The same will be true for the audio music industry. Radio, iPod, Sat-Rad, audiobooks, internet radio, etc… they may all compete for your love (ear time), but they’re still one big happy family.

Comments

[akindman]

There are other ways to fill your personal music player besides the itunes store or illicit downloading. The vast majority of music on mine was ripped from my personal CD collection. Also, the net is full of great music that's free to download, like archive.org's Live Music archive. And there are podcast subscriptions, which are an easy way to get exposure to new music if that's your desire.

Satellite radio's main draw IMO is the exclusive live content, not the standard music stations.

[Malkiel]

I never hear anyone taking note of satellite's peculiar capabilities that make it different from broadcast radio: the ability to listen to the same programming stream without interruption across a wide geographical area. You can reliably listen to your favorite programming without commercials from coast to coast while driving your rv, or while motoring your boat from Maine to Florida. I suspect the technology might also be able to provide wireless internet connectivity someday, and that would be a big plus.

The Clearchannel radio moguls have turned broadcast into a wasteland of wall-to-wall oldies stations, all but killing the top-40 format that allowed the public to sample new music, and grifting for music to download on an ipod is a tedium reserved for the young and aimless. Satellite has a bright future as car buyers come to realize they can liberate themselves from the commercial yakkety yak of broadcast radio without worrying about losing signal from their favorite channels...

[akindman]

Needless to say, the characterization of portable media player content loading/finding as something incredibly time-consuming, expensive, tedious, only for criminals, Satanists, Michael Vick, etc., is misleading and wrong.

It reeks of an appeal to fear argument that you might hear from a satellite marketer. I believe the young and aimless call that FUD.

[peter02l]

Excellent point. Some of us find switching channels to find a song that fits the mood (and having to wait through commercial) very time consuming. Playlists are a very good solution to prearrange and incrementally improve song collections and are much less distracting on the road. For the up to date news and such, there is still the traditional broadcast radio. And I don't know who would commute cross-country to work. As for traveling on the RV, paying a monthly subscription fee for an occasional annual trip should sound too much of a luxury for someone who can't afford a 99 cent download to begin with!

[Tom B]

"You can reliably listen to your favorite programming without commercials from coast to coast while driving your rv, or while motoring your boat from Maine to Florida. I suspect the technology might also be able to provide wireless internet connectivity someday, and that would be a big plus."

I'm not a retiree or a drug runner, but I get your point. Except that, for this purpose, pre-recording Podcasts and concerts onto an iPod works just as well.

"The Clearchannel radio moguls have turned broadcast into a wasteland of wall-to-wall oldies stations,"

Absolutely. The GOP's incredibly stupid hand-over of our air waves to Clear Channel has utterly destroyed commercial radio. I bet in a few years, radios will be an option in cars.

Back on topic: I think Mr. Rizzi does not understand the iPod if he thinks filling it up with content is at all time-consuming. Once set up, the process is more or less automatic.

[Mario Rizzi]

If you actually bothered to read the article you would see that I only mentioned time (the word) twice. The whole article is not about the time aspect of downloading a song and putting it on an iPod or other mp3 player. Some people have different preferences, some don't want to download music or rip it from cd's or get podcasts each day, some just want to switch a dial and hear a good selection of music, commercial free with over 100 channels to choose from and coast to coast reception, albeit sometimes dodgy. It's really a matter of preference. And I did not intend to characterize the iPod as inferior. The damn thing has sold 100 million units, obviously it's good, but when people say that it will totally monopolize the whole music industry, they are wrong. We have to balance the arguments a bit. With the way you guys are defending the iPod when the intent was never to slander it, you sound like the FUD kickers.

And, downloading songs from itunes or ripping cd's, or getting podcasts does take some time, not to mention putting stuff in a playlist so that there is some continuity. And I didn't even mention the technology barrier... with as simple as it is, some of the older generation just seem incapable to learn how to use an iPod. With a preinstalled Sat-Rad, it is more like a regular radio.

[peter02l]

"some just want to switch a dial and hear a good selection of music, commercial free with over 100 channels to choose from and coast to coast reception"

Why didn't you mention the time required to do this then, to be fair.

[Malkiel]

"I'm not a retiree or a drug runner, but I get your point. Except that, for this purpose, pre-recording Podcasts and concerts onto an iPod works just as well."

Why does everybody assume that music is the only content? Live weather, news, sports, and discussion are big programming areas that aren't even available as downloads. This type of programming is a shootout between radio, tv, and satellite, with the ipod not even in contention (though perhaps the iphone can play...)