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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."'"
Yeah, you'll have one company offering satellite radio. And thousands of companies offering AM/FM radio, internet streaming radio...
XM & Sirius asked the justice department for approval over a year ago. Why on earth did it take them so long to approve this? Here are a few other mergers that the DoJ approved in under a year: Exxon/Mobil, AT&T/Bellsouth, Chevron/Texaco, Sprint/Nextel, Whirlpool/Maytag, etc.
Of course a number of these other huge mergers didn't require FCC approval as well. The XM/Sirius merger now as to wait for FCC approval, so it's going to end up being a lot longer before this is all said and done. It absolutely disgusts me that XM/Sirius is taking so much longer than the consolidation of the oil industry, telephone industry, etc. This will end up being the longest approval process in history. What justifies taking so long when mergers involving bigger economic concerns like oil took hardly any time in comparison?
It won't become worthless. It'll likely become more valuable. If the merger completes then in the short term you'll likely see content being shared between the two services. Right now the various sports franchises have pitted the two satellite providers against each other for lucrative exclusive deals. You can hear NFL on Sirius only, MLB on XM only, etc. When the merger completes you'll likely be able to hear baseball on Sirius and football on XM. Other exclusive content, like Oprah on XM, Howard Stern on Sirius, etc. will also likely be made on the other service. So the bottom line is that you'll probably have more content available to you.
Eventually you'll probably see receivers that can receive both services, but that will depend a lot on how the companies decide to merge their two technologies. That likely won't happen for years though, and during all that time they have to keep supporting their existing customers.
You're missing a lot.
XM/Sirius is a pay service. They offer music, news, talk shows, etc.
AM/FM radio is free. They offer music, news, talk shows, etc.
iPods can be used to listen to music, news (podcasts, etc), talk shows, etc. (also for free)
New emerging technologies like wimax may offer alternative ways of streaming music, news, talk shows, etc.
This is basically what the DoJ ultimately decided. There are enough alternatives for content delivery that a merger of these two wouldn't create a monopoly in the economic sense. True they may be the only company offering services by satellite but they certainly couldn't jack up the prices without customers leaving for perfectly viable alternatives like terrestrial radio, iPods, etc.
It's closer to DirecTV and Dish merging. Neither has a whole lot of subscribers, and their real competition is cable and free TV, along with the internet, etc...
Satellite radio's real competition is terrestrial radio (analog and HD) along with MP3 players. That's who they have to compete with, if people don't want to pay for their service they don't have to, there are other places to go.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
XM is not the biggest competitor for Sirius (nor vice versa). CD/MP3 players and AM/FM broadcasts are - and HD radio is marketing aggressively to try to maintain that market segment. The driver for lowering satellite radio prices and improving content is persuading people that it's worthwhile to adopt satellite radio and pay the subscription fees. A market war between two satellite providers would only drive prices up and deteriorate service quality.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The issue has little to do with what competition remains within satellite radio, but whether there remains competition. Satellite radio competes with broadcast radio and a number of other formats, so the merger does not remove competition, but makes the combined company more efficient and less likely to lose money.
Both XM and Sirius are bleeding money right now and that can't last forever. If the the industry allowed them both to go under that would counterproductive to helping competition.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
You mean Clear Channel doesn't own them all already?
I (and millions of others just like me) listen to satellite radio all the time (I listen to it all day in my office -- listening to it right now via an XM Radio gadget in Vista). I take a 4.5 hour trip to Omaha, NE at *least* once a month, and other shorter (but still hour plus trips) between those. Hell, I even listen to the Sirius stations while I'm at home through my DishNetwork service (MAN I wish they had XM instead of DirecTV -- the Sirius programming *sucks* compared to XM in my opinion) hooked up to my HT setup.
I *hate* commercial radio. I *loath* listening to commercials for seemingly half of an hour. I hate it so much that I barely watch TV live (I record virtually everything). XM has been *awesome* for me. I am not alone.
Just because *YOU* don't subscribe to it, and thusly think it's unneeded, does not make it so. It *is* a needed service. I absolutely *refuse* to listen to normal radio after having had my XM service for several years now.
As it is right now, if the merged company decides to adopt the Sirius broadcast hardware, I'll be very upset. It does not sound as nice as XM's does (Sirius just doesn't provide as much bandwidth to their music channels as XM does and this is *especially* noticeable on their internet stream). Ah, the vast population of US truckers. I forget how large of a group they are. Are you kidding me, of course there is going to be a niche demographic that has to benefit from something like this, but at large this is an unneeded service. My previous statement however I agree is with too broad of a brush and I retract it.
bork bork bork!