Although the ASTRA 2004 Conference in Sydney this week is concentrating on Subscription TV there are some side issues of interest to radio people. ASTRA is the umbrella body which currently represents subscription tv and radio companies and narrowcasters.

At the conference, Radio was mentioned in the context of subscription radio, where comment was made on the growth of this new type of service. Subscription radio can be heard as part of various subscription tv packages in Australia, and in America is growing since the advent of satellite subscription radio through XM and Sirius.

radioinfo’s reporter at the conference says: “there is a growing understanding that media convergence means “radio” or music, or similar derivatives are crossing platforms and will be able to be heard on what we currently know as TV.

“This in much the same way as a computer once was the domain of hard-drive based information, but now we can stream radio, download music and even stream video etc. This theme was recurrent in a number of sessions and provided interesting comment and observations from a variety of speakers covering the ad agency, content providers and channel managers themselves.”

Our reporter also says The Minister’s anti-siphoning rules were not met with much delight.

Arbitron Senior Vice President of International Marketing, Jay Guyther, who spoke to radioinfo last week, revealed some of the latest global findings from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter technology in a paper titled “The Latest In Portable Meter Technology” and answered questions relevant to the Australian TV industry.

Details about PPMs and Arbitron TV measurement are available at www.arbitron.com.

The conference coverered topics such as policy, marketing, digital and technical sessions, and was addressed by the Communications Minister and Shadow Communications Minister.

Program at http://www.astra.org.au/content/pdf/ProgramASTRA2004.pdf