QUEBEC CITY – Corus Entertainment wasn’t one of the radio companies to oppose the licensing of satellite radio in Canada.
In fact, it has a co-marketing arrangement with Canadian Satellite Radio which Corus president and CEO John Cassaday said yesterday should benefit both companies.
Despite the tie to XM’s Canadian partner, however, that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t see satellite radio as a competitive threat, he told attendees at CIBC World Markets’ annual investors conference at the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in Quebec City Wednesday.
That said, Cassaday doesn’t believe the competitive battle will be fought with digital over-the-air signals, but instead via the Internet. “We are not big believers in the current spectrum that’s been allocated for digital radio,” he said. “We rather think the response to satellite from terrestrial radio will be web-based, so were putting our primary focus in that area.”
While saying that traditional radio stations will also have to maintain a steady focus on their communities to keep listeners, Cassaday expanded on Corus’ web plans.
“This year we pushed the web responsibilities back onto the radio and television divisions (it had been run corporately before) and we will be working hard to exploit this web-based ad market we believe exists. Certainly we’ve seen it in the States over the past 18 to 24 months and we think the time is right to push out on that front in Canada.”
Besides Corus’ advertiser-supported podcasts Cassaday was probably alluding to (we couldn’t ask questions, only listen in) and the streamed audio already available from Corus’ radio stations, the company wants to be prepared when listeners can listen to radio via IP on their mobile phones.
“We’re simply getting ourselves ready to participate in that market when it emerges,” he added.
“We’ve gone to great lengths to lock in our talent – to differentiate our formats. We’ve spent a lot of money researching our music and playlists and that’s our (competitive) response. Clearly the risk to radio is if we can not hold our audience in their automobiles.”
