Group Owners Support NAB Petition on Satellite Radio

Several broadcast groups, including Saga Communications, Susquehanna Radio Corp., Emmis Communications, Clear Channel Radio, Journal Broadcast Group, and Radio One, have asked the FCC to support NAB’s petition to declare satellite radio national-only programming services.
“By competing with us for listeners and revenues on an everyday basis, they will siphon off enough from us to weaken our ability to provide that local safety net for our communities when it is needed most,” states Carl Gardner, president of the radio division of Journal Broadcast Group. “The end result will be that while paying subscribers of XM and Sirius will receive some measure of local information, we will be unable to continue providing a much more in-depth quality of local service on a free basis to all citizens in our communities.”
XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio state in a joint filing they are offering national programming and call NAB’s claims of economic harm to terrestrial radio “unsubstantiated and inaccurate.”