Sirius-XM merger passes legal hurdel

[tellner]

The big question has always been, will the Justice Department say that a satellite radio merger constituted a monopoly. Today that question was pretty definitively answered with a "No." They said that

• the new company could not profitably raise prices
• the nature of the equipment and deals with auto manufacturers already created barriers to switching services
• they not a monopoly since other services such as terrestrial radio and mp3 players provided significant competition

I think it's a good decision. Clear Channel and Entercom have been arguing out of both sides of their mouths for years. First they say that a merger shouldn't be allowed because satellite radio doesn't compete with their product. At the same time they say that there should be laws against satellite providers should not be allowed to broadcast weather, traffic or local news and should pay a much higher price to play music because to do otherwise would interfere with their (the terrestrial radio conglomerates') business model.

This is the first serious competition the radio companies have had in a long, long time. With any luck the new company force them to consider playing stuff that people would actually like to listen to.

 

[theletch1]

I have XM in my work truck. I drive all hours of the day and night and cover 300 miles each run. I got XM because I got tired of having to scan constantly through the channels to pick one up clearly and was often left listening to just the hum of 18 wheels and the drone of my engine because selection of terrestrial radio stations were so limited that there was nothing on worth listening to.

I don't have to pay to listen to a terrestrial station, I just have to listen to all the damn commercials. The advertisers have to pay for me to listen to land based crap. I can see where the idea that XM and Sirius merging could be considered a monopoly... there are no other sattelite providers out there but I won't be surprised if there start to be others pop up soon. The coverage area of both have been the same and it's just been a matter of choosing the content of one over the other. I'm curious to know how a merger will change which stations I pick up on my little reciever.

 

[tellner]

Near as I can tell your choice of stations won't change immediately. You will be able to get some kind of converter on certain models which will allow you to get Sirius channels. Sometime Real Soon Now there will be joint S/XM radios.