The last week of June, Chrysler announced it will offer wireless Internet access in all of its 2009 models, as reported in Jim Carnegie's Radio Business Report. RBR reports the Chrysler system "...dubbed UConnect Web, would be the first such technology from any automaker. Chrysler is hoping that providing drivers access to the information superhighway will set it apart from competitors. Needless to say, the system will be able to stream audio."
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If Chrysler does it, can Toyota, General Motors, Ford, Honda, and all the other car makers be far behind?
XM and Sirius charge subscribers $12.95 a month for over a hundred commercial-free music channels that they program and for commercial-laden news/talk/sports audio channels such as CNN News and ESPN. XM has Major League Baseball and Sirius has NFL Football plus its biggest draw, potty mouth Howard Stern.
I love my satellite radio but if I could stream the internet from my truck, I wouldn’t need a subscription-based satellite service. So I think Warner may be right on this.Soon, with free Internet access, people in cars will be able to access every radio station in the world that streams audio, plus Internet audio and music services such as Pandora.com and Last.fm. Baseball will be available via MLB.com for $10 a year or free from radio stations that have an audio stream of the games, and the same with NFL games.
All of this means that content providers (music, sports, talk, comedy, and news) will be able to go directly to their consumers and bypass (disintermediate) traditional distribution channels such as radio stations, satellite radio, television stations, and cable systems sooner rather than later. The disintermediation of the main-stream, traditional media has begun.
3 comments:
Thanks for the heads up. I think this would be a good think. I have XM Radio today. I purchased it primarily since they carry MLB. (and Air America). But Sirous carries the NFL. It would be nice to have one source that carried everything.
I listen to AOL radio (carries Rush Limbaugh) and pandora at work. Since I drive mostly 15 minutes or less and normally don't listen to radio at home, I never saw a need to get satellite.
So with the wireless internet, will we now have to worry about people browsing porn or youtube down the highway?
Now the Internet is really going to kill satellite broadcasting across the board. Check your investment portfolios for old media companies like Viacom and Time-Warner. You may want to dump some stocks
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