Broadcast Radio Increasingly Under Fire From New Technologies

Two interesting twists on the rapid evolution of broadcasting reported via the RAIN newsletter:

First from Billboard Radio Monitor, in the UK "internet radio is more popular than digital downloads with 90% of radio listeners having accessed radio through digital/mobile devices…".  According to a new UK study "…4,000 radio listeners ages 16 and over (were polled). It reports that digital platforms are encouraging more people to listen to the radio and that there is a trend away from FM radio toward digital. Those polled indicated significant interest in using iPods and MP3 players to listen to digital radio."

And satellite radio which is also proving to be a significant threat to broadcast radio is experiencing their own threats. In addition to free re-broadcasts of Howard Stern’s paid subscription service via P2P, the net and in NYC on pirate radio stations, both  XM and Sirius are now fighting software and web developers who have found ways to access the XM Satellite and Sirius web sites to stream music  via Windows ‘smartphones’ and other devices according to WIRED. They are giving their software away for free and thus trumping the satellite companies own efforts to monetize cell broadcasting in the future.