Jason Calacanis, CEO of
Weblogs Inc., has a
list of predictions for 2006. While there are lots of those, Calacanis' successes (his latest was selling Weblogs Inc. to AOL) make his list worth reading.
I was interested in his prediction that
Howard Stern would help raise
Sirius
to 5 million paying subscribers, now that he's moved over to the No. 2
satellite radio network. Some of Calacanis' readers commented on his
predictions list that Stern probably can't do that because moving to
paid radio "takes him off the cultural map."
That's an interesting thought. But if someone in media goes behind a paid subscription wall (as the likes of op-ed columnists
Thomas Friedman,
Maureen Dowd, et al from the
New York Times also did recently), must they "fall off the map"?
I don't think so, as long as their personalities remain a strong
presence in the free-media world. Stern, Friedman, and Dowd need to
offer up something to non-paying fans, in my view. Sirius would be
smart to offer lots of Stern for free on the Web -- the occasional
webcast of a Stern interview or program skit, a blog by him, maybe a
free weekly podcast. All of that will keep him on the cultural map
while also promoting the paid service. NYTimes.com could stand to offer
up more of Friedman, Dowd, et al for free to keep their global profile
high and encourage more paid subscriptions to
TimesSelect.
Freed from FCC constraints that created dramatic tension about what...
