Yow! Bashed by the Wall Street Journal

[Steve Mehs]

We're sure you saw it – it was only on the front page of the Wall Street Journal – but satellite took a hit to the stomach yesterday as WSJ writers Andy Pasztor and Anne Marie Squeo took the potential merger between Lockheed and Loral as an opportunity to bash an entire industry.

Wrote the duo, "Today the space industry is plunging back to earth, the victim of ballooning expenses, markets that never panned out and rivals on the ground who came up with cheaper ways to do business."

For such projects as Iridium and GlobalStar, such comments may be well justified. But when the writers came up with statements like: "Telephone and cable-television companies frequently beat their satellite rivals to some markets by being more nimble and offering lower prices," we really have to wonder. Cable beat satellite (nimbly and cheaply, no less) where? With what? Not in video where satellite continues to make gains; in telco services, the wired ones are aiming at telephone companies, not dish heads; and as for those fabulous data offerings ... They are great, but has anyone noted the fast declining forecasts of late? And then there is the breathtaking "Satellite radio programming may yet (our emphasis) become a winner if auto makers continue to support it with funding and marketing." This for a service which didn't even exist a little over nine months ago? Golly.

Now we know that next to the Wall Street Journal, SkyREPORT.com is barely a blip, but still….

From SkyReport (http://www.skyreport.com) (Used with Permission)

[woodman]

Steve:
I'm continuously appalled by the proliferation of "news" stories concerning electronic technologies in which the writers know very little (if anything at all) about the subjects that they write about with such seeming authority.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to counter it effectively. Exposing such tripe at forums such as this only reaches a minuscule number of people, sad to say.

[Scott Greczkowski]

While I love Skyreport, I have to wonder why many of their articles lately have turned into Editorials instead of actual stories.

Even though they are correct in what they say, I wish they would stick to the news. :)

[lee635]

Well, I can see the WSJ's point. Satellite was touted as the answer that would kill telephones and cell phones and t-1 lines and dsl, etc. And that hasn't happened. Sat phones died while cell phones keep dropping in price, and high speed data is still trying to figure out a real time solution on sat for that niche who can't get anything else. Heck, even E* and D* are using fiber distribution to get local signals back to the headend, not satellite. Consumer c-band is dying out.

DBS is the shining success in the satellite industry. And satellite raddio is so new...successful so far, but the fat lady has not sung yet on that one.

[Scott Greczkowski]

And satellite raddio is so new...successful so far, but the fat lady has not sung yet on that one.

Hey wait a second! I am listening to my XM Radio as I type this and there is a fat lady singing....

(Whats that.. Or Carnie Willson had an operation and is no longer fat?)

Hmm Ok well then I stand corrected There is a formally fat lady singing. :)