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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.
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!
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.
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
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.
If you look at the combined content of the separate companies, there is a lot of duplication of effort. Each provider has some exclusive content, but the majority of content is duplicated. There is also 2x the infrastructure, 2x the personnel, 2x the billing systems, etc. Well, it may not be exactly 2x but you get the idea. By combining the two, you combine the customer base yet cut the overall operational budget. Thus the bottom line is improved. There could also conceivably be some added advantages of freeing up bandwidth. Or they could sell of the radio spectrum too.
Nothing will be decided probably until at least years end. Even if they get approval, it will take some time to also figure out the technical details as to who's equipment to go with, who gets laid off, etc. Actual savings probably won't be seen for several years, but if indeed they do merge, the cost of competition gets a lot cheaper in a hurry.
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.
My blog
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.
The majority of content is NOT duplicated. Sirius and XM sound NOTHING alike. Sirius channels sound like normal radio stations, but without commercials. XM channels sound like somebody took a random pile of CDs, shoved them in a changer, and hit the "shuffle" button.
They're about as equivalent as Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and Naproxen sodium. Yeah, they're technically all painkillers and reduce fever, but anyone who's ever had a headache or fever knows that they're definitely NOT all the same. Tylenol utterly sucks compared to the other two, but some people are forced to use it because they can't tolerate them. Ibuprofen rocks for headaches, but sucks for fevers (unless you enjoy having your fever come back every 4-6 hours). Naproxen sodium is a godsend for fevers (breaks once, stays that way), but a complete waste of time for headaches. The same is true of Sirius and XM. Both have slightly different audiences with different expectations -- all of whom are going to be FURIOUS if their network mutates into the other. Even slightly.
Talk to anyone who subscribes to either service. I guarantee that 99% of them will react to the news of a merger with absolute horror at the thought that ${their_network} will get turned into ${other_network}. I *guarantee* that if a merger happens and the music channels from one or the other get dropped to "streamline" and "eliminate redundancy", AT LEAST half of the losing service's carriers will leave in disgust. At the same time, the "winner" network will probably lose at least a quarter of its customers if it changes even slightly to be more like the loser's format was. Ultimately, we'll be stuck with one mediocre provider whose financial position is only slightly better than before, and now has hundreds of thousands of angry and pissed off former customers saying bad things about it and discouraging their friends from subscribing.
This is horrible news for the customers of BOTH services. I expect to see an outpouring of anger from customers of BOTH Sirius AND XM demanding that the FCC NOT allow a merged company to own both frequency bands in a desperate effort to derail the whole merger.