RSSSenator: Say No to XM-Sirius Merger
By Ed Oswald | Published May 24, 2007, 2:08 PM
Political opposition to the merger of satellite radio providers XM and Sirius increased on Wednesday, as the chair of the Senate antitrust committee sent a letter to both the FCC and Justice Department opposing the deal.
Saying it would cause "substantial harm to competition and consumers," Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said the deal was unacceptable under antitrust law. He also said current communications policy forbids the merger as well.
Both XM and Sirius have argued that such a deal is necessary for the continued viability of the medium, and that it competes directly with other portable music devices such as the iPod.
However, opponents argue that leaving the nation's only two satellite radio companies to combine creates an unacceptable monopoly, and give XM and Sirius the ability to raise rates as they see fit.
These critics also have the agreements for the spectrum themselves on their side: signed in 1997, they specify that the two companies can never merge.
CEO-designate Mel Karmazin has pledged in hearings in front of Congress that the combined company will not raise rates. He has also offered to allow customers to block out adult channels, as well as receive a refund for channels they do not want.
Although Kohl is chairman of the antitrust committee in the Senate, there is little he could do to stop the merger. The final say lies with the DOJ and FCC, not Congress.
Sirius is talk radio and XM is music radio. First thing to be added after merger is ads on the many ad-free XM channels. Presumably, too, they'd dumb down to using Sirius' inferior codecs so as to broadcast more but lower quality stations.
Because the technical systems used by the services are so different, any efficiency savings would be long coming.
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|Bottom line is the merger is good. Cause then we will have one larger co. that will be even better able to defend itself against the radio world. Sirius is a million times better then the AM/FM Radio world. The fact is they offer a far better product and the radio industry feels threatend by the merger. Isn't it funny how the defection of Howard Stern has changed the entire landscape of radio as we know it. I know more and more people that are getting Sirius cause of Stern. Or I should say cause of the lack of Stern on regular radio. And the rates for the merger Co. wont go up for one reason. They are in a fight for their lives against reg. radio. They need to maintain any advantage they have for as long as they can.
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|The only thing that Mel has pleged is to offer substantially similar content for the same price.
Substantially similar and the same content are 2 entirely different things.
I can easily see them creating a tiered billing system.
Want MLB, add $5. Want Stern, add $7, want NFL, add $6.
The only thing that has prevented price increases amongst the Sat Rad companies is the fact that there is competition. Remove that competition and watch the price rise.
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|Sat radio isn't a crucial service, so I could care less about who owns what. telephones? yeah. it's critical. No AT&T monopolies. Silly satellite tech? go for all the monopolies you want. I still won't use it--ever.
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|"CEO-designate Mel Karmazin has pledged in hearings in front of Congress that the combined company will not raise rates."
Yeah, right. Reminds me of the cable TV monopolies we have here in Canada. Most areas have only one cable company. Several years ago they introduced a well priced 6MBit internet package with unlimited usage. Then after a few years when they had lots of subscribers, they cleverly introduced monthly bandwidth caps. Sure, they didn't raise rates, they just put limits on how much you can use it. I know it's not the same thing, but it's something to think about when corporate fat cats with deep pockets make you promises you know they won't be keeping.
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|More content, more choice. Viable competition versus terrestrial & HD. I'm not sure where the problem is.
Congress has done more to f up radio lately than I can ever remember...
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|I would actually consider subscribing if they were to merge. My car came with XM built-in...
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|Ditto; I'm waiting for them to merge before jumping in.
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|I think the merger is good for both companies, however it is no where better for customers. If they merge, they have a monopoly in the industry, and can charge whatever they want.
They need to find way to cut cost. Paying $400 million for a radio host is not one of them.
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|It was actually 500million, and well over 600 million after the bonus they gave him cause he did in fact booast membership bigtime. When on regular radio he had a steady 20-30 million a day listeners. Very few Prime time TV shows can say that. He is the most listened to man in radio history(like him or not). He took a struggling Sirius radio and turned it arround overnite. XM has seen the writing on the wall and knows it can not survive a continued battle with Sirius. Paying Stern all that cash is worth every dime cause it makes want Sirius. If it was anyone else I would say 500 million is way to much. But Stern is not anyone else, he is the Michael Jordan of radio. Other national radio hosts struggle to get a million or two listeners. Stern can do that and more in his sleep.
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|I'm not against it. I think it would be good for both companies AND their customers. I am a customer of XM and I don't see a problem with it.
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