XM And Sirius In Merger Talks

[Ioman]

http://news.designtechnica.com/article6402.html

Yes, the title of this article is not an illusion, XM Radio and Sirius Radio are actually contemplating a merger according to the New York Post.

The article by the New York posts says that the two companies have talked in the past about merging but apparently they never got to a more advanced stage. Executives at the two companies have not discussed price, but there is concern over any potential antitrust problems that could occur because of a merger. The FCC's reaction would also be a concern they would have to worry about.

We have to wonder if the announcement of Howard Stern moving over to Sirius Radio in 2006 has anything to do with this. Howard has a following in the millions, which could just be enough to tip the balance in Sirius Radio's favor.

There has been no comment from either XM or Sirius Radio regarding this rumor.

Ok this is a bad idea. Consumers will lose any choice they otherwise would have had. And this means rates could go up and we would have no control over it. I hope the FCC and the government prevent this from happeneing.

[k2]

the fcc should have no say, it's a private subscription service and it's not like other companies couldn't launch their own sats to start their own service. i'm betting xm is sweating stern going to sirius. i'm jumping on sirius once stern makes the move.

[Archon]

yea, if the FCC lets this happen, they might as well let Sprint-Nextel merge with Cingular-ATTW

[znaps]

If they let it happen it will be because they know the big dogs are going to be moving into the sat radio market soon, and XM and Sirius may need their combined strength to fight that.

[k2]

Archon, the lines are regulated for fair practices .. in a market of 2, there's no reason not to let them merge unless they were worried about creating a monopoly. it's like satellite tv, how many networks are there? 2? in canada there's 1. the fcc is overstepping their boundaries too much lately.

[Ioman]

Znaps and K2 both make excellent points. Personally, I don't think the FCC should allow the merger based on principal. Lets be honest, they have so few customers that a merger would not affect the majority of the population, so no big deal. Not like a cell phone provider that has millions of subscribers.

But as Znaps points out. If the merger happens, it opens the door to much larger companies that will see this opporunity and use it to their advantage. There needs to be more players in the satellite radio game before they allow any companies to merge.

[llbbl]

So XM would buy Sirius?

[ECA]

I like persons that BRING up sat/TV...its funny you say 2...
If you go analog, theres like 200...