Satellite radioheads going grey market
Brian Presement considers himself a patient man. But last month, the Richmond Hill, Ont., resident got fed up with the politically motivated roadblocks pertaining to the approval of Canadian satellite radio. And instead of silently stewing about the seemingly endless delays — the federal Cabinet finally approved the service last week, but Canadian satellite radio won’t hit airwaves until later this year — Mr. Presement simply made a run for the border.
In New York, he purchased a Sirius satellite radio, which is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and cost him US$ 150, with car installation hardware included.
Then he signed up for a U. S. Sirius subscription. Because only U. S. residents are eligible for the service, Mr. Presement provided Sirius with a U. S. billing address belonging to an American friend, along with authorization to charge his credit card US$12.95 a month. In return, Mr. Presement now receives more than 120 crystal clear and censorship- free radio stations, ranging from talk to shock to a 24/7 all-Elvis frequency.
Even though Mr. Presement is paying in full for services rendered, oddly, he is indeed engaged in an illegal activity under the Radio Communication Act, according to Jim Thiessen, a policy analyst with Industry Canada.
Satellite TV and satellite radio reception has to come from “a lawful distributor in Canada, and if it [ the signal] is from an American service provider, they’re not a lawful distributor in Canada,” Mr. Thiessen says, noting that this regulation “has been confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.”
Nonetheless, delays have left an estimated 100,000 Canadian radio fans antsy enough to go ahead and get their satellite service through U. S. broadcasters. And as Mr. Presement points out, why wouldn’t they? By subscribing to the U.S. Sirius service, consumers receive about 40 more stations than Sirius Canada will offer. U. S. programming is also free from the usual CRTC regulations pertaining to everything from language to content.
Mr. Presement says he chose Sirius over the competing XM service because shock jock Howard Stern — now free of Federal Communication Commission regulations — will be joining Sirius in January.
Since Mr. Stern was the driving force behind Mr. Presement’s choice of carrier, his decision to go the “grey market” route is looking even more prudent given that Stern might not even be carried by Sirius Canada.
“I would imagine, given what we live with in this country with the [Canadian Broadcast] Standards Council, that if we are only going to be running 80 channels [versus 120 in the U.S.], Howard Stern will not be one of them,” says Gary Slaight, president and CEO of Standard Broadcasting. (Standard Broadcasting and the CBC are the Canadian licencees behind Sirius Canada, which is 49% owned by Sirius in the U.S.)
Mr. Slaight is hopeful that Canadian aficionados of satellite radio will cease breaking federal law, which carries a maximum penalty of $10,000 and one year in prison.
Yet, even he concedes that if Canadian law enforcement had a mandate to crack down on grey market radio, such a task would be “impossible” to carry out given the U. S. and Canadian hardware is identical.
Certainly, Mr. Presement has no regrets about his decision to go grey market.
“I love it — there are still stations I haven’t even listened to yet,” he says.