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XM And SIRIUS Radio Merging
lenny6998 writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that XM and Sirius Radio, the only two major players in the relatively new market of subscription satellite radio have announced a merger. "The two companies said in a statement that Mel Karmazin, the CEO of Sirius, would become chief executive of the new company while Gary Parsons, the chairman of XM, would remain in that role."
Wonder when they will announce price increases?
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
Not really, as they will still face competition from traditional radio.
A more interesting merger than XM and SIRIUS, is really now Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony being on the same network.
Can one satellite network handle two (well three) giant egos.
Let's find out.
-Teiresias
We already covered the FCC saying no. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/2 2/2237249
Methinks it's time to buy a telescope to watch them merge the satellite!
Be relentless!
XM and Sirius have never been profitable. They have both lost hundreds of millions of dollars since their inception. So what good is a merger?
Sorry, I use it ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Ask any trucker if they will part with their Satellite radio.
I drive close to 300 miles a week in the DFW area and local radio stations just don't have enough content to keep me intrested. Except for a few talk shows that I listen to, I need a sat radio to keep sane.
Yes, I do have an ipod loaded to the gills with music, but to be frank, without Satellite, I wouldn't have any NEW content to keep me awake.
As a huge O&A/Ron & Fez fan, I hope that the new company gets rid of some of the redundant stations (do we need 4 Top 20 stations?) and allocate more bandwidth to new stations. Maybe the Hideout boys and Ron & Fez get their own station while The Virus goes 24/7 O&A. Every time Ron and Fez mention "big things" for their show, ELo (Eric Logan) mentions the bandwidth issue.
Also, as a Big XII Alumni (Baylor,) hopefully they'll give us an option to start listening to Sirius content on XM. Oh, and there is that little league called the NFL.
I'm also curious to see how Opie and Anthony live working umnder the same umbrella as Howard Stern. Time will tell.
What, me Tweet?
Exactly. Monopolies in and of themselves are not illegal. Antitrust laws make it unlawful to maintain or attempt to create a monopoly through tactics that either unreasonably exclude firms from the market, or significantly impair their ability to compete.
I was wondering about that too. They either are so desperate for a merger that they'll take their chances with the FCC, or they've already talked with Martin and convinced him that it won't be anticompetitive.
Who knows, they may succeed in framing the competition issue as one applying to the streamed audio market, which encompasses radio, Internet radio, and sat radio. When discussing broadband, the FCC frequently defines the market rather broadly, incorporating dish access into the discussion, as if it is a serious market participant. Given their generally broad interpretation of communications markets, they (or at least Martin, Tate, and McDowell) may buy the argument.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The thing everyone forgets is that monopoly isn't the problem: it's the abuse of monopoly to unfairly control a market.
XM and Sirius have so far both struggled for customers for several reasons, not the least of which being problems of customer awareness. Many people simply don't know - and won't learn without extensive research - which network would be better for them (in terms of content, quality and price). People are used to having one radio "network", expecting competitors to just be different channels. The idea of two separate networks with non-interoperable hardware just isn't what people want.
The question is how this new hybrid company (I love the AT&T joke...) will shape its new business model: if no other satellite companies emerge, will they offer channels 'for rent' to other content providers? Will they continue to own all channels? Etc.
"Stumble before you crawl"
You linked the word "monopolies" to the Wikipedia article "Natural monopoly". I dispute that broadcasting has to be a natural monopoly. In fact, the structure of broadcast licensing in the United States ensures that music radio broadcasting is a coercive monopoly. This is due to the FCC's foot-dragging on low-power FM station licensing, bought and paid for in part by XM investor Clear Channel Communications and by National Public Radio.
Yeah I have to agree with your other replier. Thats great that you don't find a need for satellite radio (I mean it saves you money right?) but others of us have a good need for it. First off the truckers and professional drivers who are looking for consistent radio coverage no matter where they are driving. But ontop of that those of us looking for specific niche channels. Howard Stern fans, Opie and Anthony fans... general sports fans (for instance you can probably get all of your local sports team's games on your local radio, but what if you like a out-of-state team, or you like listening to any game possible). There are comedy channels (24/7 stand-up routines), news channels (CNN, CNN Headline, FoxNews, BBC WorldNews). Satellite really does offer up a lot of options for those not only interested in music.
In terms of music-only listening I think you make a great point, but satellite offers much more than just music.
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As a Sirius subscriber, I'm a bit worried what a merger, if approved, might bring. They mention a more a la carte selection of channels. I read this as "tiered" pricing. If I had to guess, it sounds like it will be more modeled after the pay-for-tv pricing...i.e. you get a basic package for x dollars, a premium packages for y dollars, oh and you want the sports package? thats an extra z dollars. If it goes that route, I'm really going to have to reconsider if it is really worth it to me. Overall I've been happy with the Sirius service and choice of programming they've had. All for one price keeps it simple and affordable. Any changes to that, which are bound to happen in a merger like this, chances are the consumer loses.
Art will introduce us to the shadow people, then Stern will ask them to show us their boobs.
Both services have commercial-free stations. With XM (my preferred service) the stations actually run by XM are commercial-free. There are plenty of other stations run by outside sources (News, Talk, some music) which have advertising in order to sync properly with their original broadcast source.
I love listening to Bill O'Reilly and hearing Viagra commercials every other break.
Its clear that XM and Sirius were in competition for a limited market. The iPod in the end was what brought these two together. XM and Sirius had a small window before cars started installing adapters for iPods. Since almost everyone who listens to music has a iPod, it meant that the benefits of satellite radio where lost when you could just plug in your iPod.
Whereas the two radio networks were counting on subscriptions continuing to increase each year for the next 4 years, in reality, they started leveling off this year. And now they have a business model based on a subscription base neither is likely to meet.
As a result, I think we'll see one of two things out of the new company. Either a substantial rate increase or a substantial content decrease. At any rate, its unlikely that the new company will have the variety of content that we see on both today.
There will continue to be a market for Sat radio as there continues to be a market for local broadcast radio. Your Tb of home-stored mp3's and movies won't tell you why people are meeting in town to discuss tonight's city council meeting, who died today, the status of rain, or what those fire engines were at 2 in the morning. They won't show you things you don't already know. Sure, you can get those things from the 'net in other ways, but many people like it this way, and the media is flexible to find new folks who like it in a slightly different way that it can accomodate.
Things don't die out as much as they thin out because of increased choices.
My wife used to love the 80s music channel they had under the old system. But now they replaced that with "Ethel" or "Fred" or somesuch, and it sucks ass.
Well, which is it? 80's (channel 8), which plays mostly Top 40 hits from that decade with some deep cuts tossed in, or Fred (channel 44), which is "classic alternative", which is going to play New Wave and some punk, mostly from the 80s, but sometimes possibly a bit earlier and possibly reaching into the early 90s, or Ethel, which is going to play newer versions of what Fred plays? There's also a ton of Top 40 format stuff hiding in the 20s, and any of those might trot out an 80s tune now and again.
Yet another annoying factor is that the old system used to tell you on screen what was currently playing and which album it was from. It was very informative. The new system just gives you a little info and 90% of the time it's completely wrong. If that's what XM is like, then they can shove it.
That's gotta be DirecTV dropping the ball, not XM. I have XM radio, my girlfriend has XM radio, and we both listen to it online, and the artist, song title, and (in online's case) album title is always correct.
We have Dish Network at home, which in addition to keeping its own digital music channels, added Sirius' lineup. I find the jazz lineup a little better on Sirius while my girlfriend likes the alternative lineup on XM a bit better. We picked XM for the car because my Acura came with it standard - something I think is a big limiter in new radio sales - a particular manufacturer signing exclusive deals with one company and not the other, and the retro radio sales just follow along that track. When the lease on my Acura is up, unless I want to pay full price on getting a Sirius subscription, I'm either going to have to buy a model of car with it included or retro an XM radio into it and ignore the Sirius built-in. Why they couldn't stay modular and have either XM or Sirius be an option (like in the Audi/VW world) is beyond me.
I also agree that sat radio's main competition is not from the other company, but from in-car media players. Right now I specifically have not bought an IPod/MP3 player because most of the time I'm listening to music I'm either at home (I have access to CDs) or I'm in the car (and I just turn on my sat radio). If the playlists start getting compromised because they're spending so much money for shock jocks that they can't play a deeper selection of music, then IPods might become a more serious consideration. I spend money for XM every month so I don't have to buy the CDs that I would normally use to make such a varied playlist that I have at my disposal, because at the end of the day an IPod is useless if all you can put on it is the music you've bought and are already sick of, or what's limited to the stuff you can buy on AMS or something similar. Sometimes you just want to get in the car and have music... you don't want to have to skip through a playlist that you put together when you were in an entirely different mood.
Really? My life does not revolve around finding new music and programming it into my iPod. I listen to Sat Radio so I don't have to do that. Plus, I get comedy, talk, and a lot of other programming that have no or less ads.
Not all of us are tied to our iPods by our nose.
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