Q&A: The NAB, satellite radio and local programming

Steve Safran March 10th, 2007

There is a resolution before the House of Reps that has spurred a lot of forwarded emails to me. H.R. 983, the “Local Emergency Radio Service Preservation Act of 2007″ decidedly takes satellite radio services to the mat. It’s also not new - it’s a reintroduction of a bill that has not passed before. The National Association of Broadcasters supports this bill. And that has launched a bunch of forwarded emails along with a note, the gist of which insinuates that this bill would block satellite radio from broadcasting an Amber Alert or severe weather alert into your community. We always like to go to the source around here. Kris Jones, a spokesperson with the NAB, spoke with me on Friday to discuss the NAB’s position on this bill and the NAB’s thoughts on what local broadcasters can do to distinguish their programming from national programming.

The following is the Q&A of that conversation. It is, absolutely, edited — not for content, only for the sake of clarity, the usual give and take of a conversation, and this typist’s occasional falling-behind on the keyboard. There is a summary at the end.

Safran: What is the NAB’s position on this bill?

Kris Jones: We are 100% behind it. We love it. This bill has been introduced before. It was HR 998 last year. It garned 139 sponsors in the house. It’s a bill that’s gaining momentum.

Safran: Would this bill prohibit satellite radio from telling their audience with their own announcers that a storm is coming or that an Amber Alert is in effect right now?

Jones: What the bill does is that it holds satellite radio accountable. When satellite radio was licensed it was as a national-only service – this bill holds them accountable to that.

Safran: Right, but again - would it keep satellite radio from informing its audience that there was an Amber Alert in Boston?

Jones: If they broadcast - and broadcast is the wrong term - there was an Amber Alert in Boston it would hit the entire audience across the nation. When they were licensed it was to a national audience. Had they have been given a local license, circumstances would be different That’s not what terms of the license say.

Safran: Right now, I can get Boston traffic and weather here. Does this bill change that?

Jones: No. What this says it that the traffic and weather should stay where they are on whatever channel they are, that all of them should continue to broadcast nationally.

(We discuss a bit. The gist here is that - on satellite radio - you can hear Boston traffic in DC, San Francisco weather in Dallas, etc. The NAB supports this bill which would, by Jones’s reading, keep this in place. It would rather not see Boston only receive Boston-only weather and traffic.)

Safran: If local radio stations could join forces with satellite radio and get on the satellites, would the NAB support that partnership?

Jones: We don’t tell radio stations what they can and can’t do. That would be an individual station decision. Keep in mind that local stations already garner 260 million listeners a week and 180 million a day (nationally).

Safran: Does the NAB see satellite radio and the web as competitors to terrestrial radio?

Jones: Local radio stations are already embracing a number of different platforms including the internet. You’re already seeing a number of stations embracing the internet, to generate another avenue of revenue for the local station.

Safran: Right, but is satellite radio a competitor to the local radio stations themselves?

KJ: Satellite radio pipes in programming into each of our markets, that’s for sure. A local radio station competes with satellite radio on a local basis but not on a national basis. That’s what XM and Sirus do.

Radio broadcasters understand that the most successful station is true to localism. That station understands its audience, programs local content and is true to its local community.

Safran: So does the NAB advise broadcasters on how to distinguish themselves from national services? If everyone can play the “Top 40,” how do locals stand out?

KJ: Local programming is what broadcasters are all about - time and time again whether it’s day-in or day-out (programming) or in time of weather-related crises, current affairs, or critical weather. You saw it most recently during Hurricane Katrina when you had local broadcasters saving lives. You saw Entercom and ClearChannel in New Orleans combine newsrooms and provide surrounding areas with life saving information.

Any local broadcaster you can talk to will tell you knowing your community, knowing your audience, providing community-oriented and locally oriented programming is going to be successful.

SUMMARY: The NAB strongly supports HR 983, which it says reinforces the guidelines under which satellite radio was licensed. The NAB says HR 983 does not block satellite radio from issuing an Amber Alert, but that satellite radio operator would seemingly have to do so nationally and could not do so on a local market-by local market basis. An Amber Alert for Dallas, for example, would have to be sent out nationally.

The NAB encourages radio stations to distinguish themselves through “localism,” by embracing locally-generated programming and reflecting their unique markets.