I remember it being big news in 2005 that PodShow would be syndicating their best and brightest to Sirius Satellite Radio. PaidContent is now reporting that the deal has ended in a very abrupt manner.

According to the PaidContent blog post, "the block was pulled from the air without notice from PodShow to more than two dozen contributing podcasters."

I'm really not sure if there is a winner or loser in this case. It couldn't have costed Sirius much money to pump the podcast content through their system. At the same time it probably didn't bring Sirius any subscribers. Why would you pay for something that you can download for free from the internet?

It was great PR for PodShow to be able to say that they could get certain podcasters on satellite radio. But what does that really mean? Satellite radio has a much narrower reach than podcasting. And you still have to be listening at the time a show is aired to hear the content.

So I'd venture to guess that podcasters were not gaining many listeners from the Sirius-PodShow connection. If anything, this indicates that podcasters are better off focusing on the common network medium known as the internet.

I have no doubt that Sirius will be evaluating their content offerings and eliminating more low value shows as their deal with XM nears closing.

Labels: podcasting, podshow, satellite radio, sirius

Two years ago today I made a very bold statement about podcasting and how it would affect satellite radio.

Yesterday the news came across that XM and Sirius satellite radio announced plans for a merger.

So what's the deal here? It's the same deal that I said it would be.

"Both players in the game, Sirius and XM, are losing cash by the bucketful."

"At this point the name of the game for both these players is survival."

"They've spent way too much money to establish a space based version of regular radio, while podcasters have pooled together to create a land based worldwide network with almost no central investment."

Read the original post to get the entire diatribe. There's not much left to say except that if the merger doesn't go through there will be a few useless satellites orbiting the earth two years from now.

Labels: podcasting, prediction, sirius, xm