Justice Dept. Approves XM/Sirius Merger

Ripit writes "Just yesterday the Justice Department approved the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Radio, a Sirius takeover to the tune of $5 billion. The transaction was approved without conditions, despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry. 'In explaining the decision, Justice officials said the options beyond satellite radio -- digital recordings, high-definition radio, Web radio -- mean that XM and Sirius could merge without diminishing competition. "There are other alternatives out there," Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett said in a conference call. "We just simply found that the evidence didn't indicate that it would harm consumers."'"

Comments

Re:Umm... what other Satellite Radio is there?

[gstoddart]

Yet more devolvement into obscure issues to justify government regulation of a company. Let me get this straight, you have the gall to sit there and whine about obscure stuff like Clear Channel quality and being able to listen to same thing driving across country and then claim the government should step in "for the customers"?

No, the DOJ was ruling on this because it was up to them to determine if this merger would create an unlawful monopoly position for a single player in the market. The law against monopolies is present exactly to protect consumers and preserve that precious "marketplace" that free market capitalists think actually exists. I'm saying that right now, you have the choice between traditional radio (owned mostly by clear channel) or satellite, which was touted as something to give you better choice -- included in that was national coverage and no comemrcials, that was the selling point of the service. In fact, they were touting themselves as bastions of free speech since Howard Stern could go on the air without being subjected to regulation by the FCC.

Quite simply - I don't subscribe to your socialist leanings.

Quite simply -- I don't give a shit what you think.

I would say leave it alone until it becomes an unreasonable burden on people, and by 'unreasonable' I don't mean "whaaa, I don't get a consistent listening experience across country".

This isn't about entrenching consumer choice in law -- this is about rules against monopolies which will tend to shit on the consumer if they have nobody to keep them in check. But, I suspect you're happy with whatever the corporations feel you should get. Good luck with that.

You are one of the new breed of closet socialists

Fuck that. I'm Canadian -- I'm honest about my left leanings and the fact that I don't believe that unbridled capitalism ever is a good thing. Sure, I could dust off my old Ayn Rand books (I have quite a few) and try once again to be a knee-jerk right-wing moron. However, I've found it to not be very fun, and mostly bullshit, and doesn't really get you to useful answers because your world is defined so narrowly.

You remind me of the poeple who think societal rights are more important than individual rights. They're not.

Horseshit. Depending on the rights, ab-suh-fucking-lutely they are. Should your individual rights allow you to commit murder, rape or theft of property without consequences? Would your self-correcting anarchy basically leave us with a peaceful equilibrium, or would it be the rule of the strong over the weak like Neitzche would have us with? See, civil society only works with some constraint upon individual rights. If you give every individual an unbridled set of rights, "society" eventually falls apart into a Darwinistic shit hole.

I am neither the rabid commie you think I am, nor the reactionary right wing wanker I think you are. So get over your damned self and stop acting like you know the one-true truth and have everyone nicely pigeon holed. Life is more complicated than a black and white position you have entrenched and can't see past.

Cheers