RSSSirius+XM is official as FCC approves merger
By Ed Oswald | Published July 28, 2008, 11:36 AM
On a 3-2 party-line vote, the Federal Communications Commission approved the merger of Sirius and XM, although the satellite radio companies had to make some key concessions.
The final commissioner to vote on the deal was Deborah Taylor Tate, who held her vote pending XM and Sirius agreeing to certain limitations. The two sides did so late last week, and Tate gave her blessing late Friday.
The Department of Justice had given the merger a green light in March of this year following its own review, already 13 months after XM and Sirius first announced their plans to merge in February 2007.
As part of the deal struck with the FCC, subscription rates will be frozen for a period of three years. In addition, interoperable radios will arrive within a year, and 8 percent of the channel capacity will be set aside for minority and educational programming.
XM and Sirius will also be ordered to pay about $20 million in fines as a result of operating their terrestrial repeaters without licenses. XM was fined $17.5 million, while Sirius would pay the remainder.
In a statement, FCC chairman Kevin Martin gave the deal his blessing. "The merger is in the public interest and will provide consumers with greater flexibility and choices," he said.
Satellite radio may not be completely out of the woods yet, however. With the FCC now free of the merger matters, it will now look into whether it should compel the industry to include technology in its radios to receive so-called "HD Radio" signals.
Commercial radio stations are offering the service in many cities as an alternative to satellite. It is not clear how successful the latest proposal may be, GM and Toyota have both complained to the FCC saying it would dilute the offerings of satellite radio.
this merger fiasco is just what is wrong with The U.S.A today. corrupt politicians, all the businessmen in the U.S sueing over petty copyright infractions. also is the only government that takes care of your kids so there parents don't have to
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|Is not a man entitled to the sweat from his brow?
NO! Says the man in Washington, it belongs to me!
NO! Says the church, it belongs to god!
NO! Says the communist, it belongs to us all!
R.I.P. America circa early 1900s.
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|How does this relate to the XM/Sirius merger?
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|Intersting requests: Rates frozen for 3 years (which is smart), 8% for minority & education (which is good). Didn't know about the fine for the reapater licenses. I'm kind of suprised that XM had to pay most of the fines. Am I to assume that XM was really lazy about appropriate licensing of the repeaters and Sirius not so much?
Either way i'm glad the FCC is done with the merger and they can concentrate on other issues. like the aforementioned HD Signals. Not sure what GM and Toyota mean by diluting the satellite radio offerings.
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|Nope they just did not listen and shut down the repeaters that were over transmission power guidelines. They also were told to get permission to put new repeaters up, but they disregarded that as well. All in all they showed no concern for federal mandates, so they are being penalized.
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|so they blatantly just didn't care, nice...
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|Look at the stock prices of both companies. sirius is tankiing both today and after hour trading. Besides, when they merge, it will besically be one Big badly run company versus two badly run companies and the fines will be on ONE company's books.
Have a nice day:)
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|Not sure about that... forced to freeze rates so now this company needs to absorb cost and salary increases; forced to give away channels (I wouldn't stand to carve up and give away any of my business)..XM pays most of the fines because they broke most of the rules. Satellite radio also has to pay fees to play music, as opposed to AM / FM radio. WTF?
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