Reading Mike Elgan's November 19th post regarding the death of Sirius radio, and a recent tweet this week regarding the Sirius iPhone app I recalled a thought I had when I discovered Google Latitude. Sirius needs to capture your location and create new revenue not from subscribers but advertisers through location targeted ads.Satellite radios biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. Location. While listening to AM talk radio I frequently drive out of range just as the programing was getting good, or have been out of range on any radio station. While Sirius XM is one possible solution, my hang up is the dreaded subscription fees. Already I pay for internet, cell phone, TV, gas, water, garbage, electricity, when does it end? I just can't stomach adding paid radio. I still remember when paying for cable meant you had channels without ads. Now we pay for Cable or Sat TV laden with more commercials than free broadcast stations.
Where cable has gotten smart is in location based advertising, and this is where Sirius could thrive. If sat radio could partner with a cell phone application feeding instant geo-location sensitive advertising within the programming stream seamlessly they would create an entirely new advertising market that would be affordable for advertisers as well as relevant to listeners. Today's connected devices could blend cell phone triangulation, blue-tooth, and a car receiver into a truely integerated audio entertainment and news service.
Restaurants could advertise lunch specials to subscribers down to the city block's location, stores could advertise sales to drivers in the vicinity, and gas stations could advertise the lowest price right to the driver around the corner. The service would also not need to be limited to advertising, real time news, traffic, and weather could be location based, further enhancing the experience. Information could even flow both directions, location, direction, and speed could also help predictivly supply ads based on your destination, or help predict traffic congestion. Additonial information could be on demand as well, just like interactive TV, you could hit your radio dial to get more information and directions regarding the advertisement you just heard.
Sirius shouldn't' be talking to Apple, they should be talking to Google. If Sirius cold roll out a free service paid by location aware advertising Adsense & Sirius could kill the radio star, it's all about location, location, location.
