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NAB Turns To Astroturfing In Fight Against Satellite Radio Merger?
from the nothing-but-static dept
In addition to its regular attempts to pass anti-satellite radio legislation, the lobbying efforts by the National Association of Broadcasters, a group representing the terrestrial radio industry, have been kicked up a notch lately with the proposed merger of Sirius and XM. They've already hired former Attorney General John Ashcroft as a shill (but only after XM declined his services), but now it appears they might be getting into astroturfing -- the practice of setting up fake grassroots consumer groups to try and sway public and political opinion. Orbitcast points to a report on the Corporate Crime Reporter about the "Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio", or C3SR, and how it is supported by the NAB. The group was supposedly made up of some law students who are satellite radio subscribers who want to stop the merger. While its founder is indeed a part-time law student, he's also a full-time employee of the lobbying arm of a Washington law firm. The head of the law firm's practice is a former assistant general counsel at the NAB, which could be excused as a coincidence. However, the C3SR founder admits that the NAB "supports" the group, but won't detail what that support entails, saying, "If we were out there in the media telling people who funded us, it would detract from support from different groups." Perhaps because if people knew it was funded by the NAB, it would have even less credibility? What's so amusing about all of the NAB's antics in this case are that the more strenuously (and ridiculously) it voices its opposition to the merger, the more it proves that the NAB sees XM and Sirius as competition -- thus proving one of the companies' main arguments why their merger should be approved.
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This is capitalism at it's best! Silence your competitors, then they have no other choices.
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Sirius+XM bandwidth = TV service..?
They are afraid of what Sirius will do- Have you seen
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-03-29T171330Z_ 01_N29190361_RTRUKOC_0_US-SIRIUS-TV.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
Sirius may be planning to offer TV service for $7/mo
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a little math
NAB = RIAA = MPAA = Bad for consumers
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Sweet quote!
"If we were out there in the media telling people who funded us, it would detract from support from different groups."
OMFG! Being that honest is such a rookie mistake!
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SOOOOooo
WTF you can do that.
I think McDonalds should do something similar to where Burger King can't operate within the same state.
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Internet Radio
http://www.savenetradio.org/ Help save net radio.
Ok, I couldn't find a good article to post that in, but I figured this work well enough.
With the help of the copyright commission the necessary rights to broadcast (netcast) music have gone to exceedingly large sums of money. Not only that, but the change in pricing will be back dated to Jan. 1.
So not only is sat radio getting hammered, but net radio is being put through the mill as most do not have the ability to move funding through like a terrestrial station.
Basically it appears that if you can't beat 'em legitimately then go after them using the government.
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Note: pricing will be back dated to Jan. 1 2006.
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Capitalism
Hey FirstPost
Capitalism - I do not think it means what you think it means.
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