[BC] Possible XM/Sirus merger?

[Mark Humphrey]

On 12/8/06, Rob Atkinson <ranchorobbo at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> wall st. jour. reported today it's doubtful. for one thing fcc prohibits the
> merging of satellite broadcasting companies.

Not that long ago, the FCC prohibited ownership of more than 7 AM and
& 7 FM stations by one company, but look at our situation today.   How
about the Fairness Doctrine?  Another "sacred" rule that went into the
trash heap.  Hire the right lobbyists, grease the right palms in
Washington, and anything is possible!

Some arguments in favor of an XM/Sirius merger:

1)  A precedent was set (with satellite TV) when Primestar was merged
into DirecTV. Why should radio be treated differently?

2)  Consumers will still have plenty of other media options such as
terrestrial radio, Internet, MediaFLO, etc.

3)  Operating costs will be greatly reduced, allowing more resources
to be devoted to quality programming (yeah, right -- but this argument
usually seems to work)

Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that Sirius buys out XM -- then
all of XM's subscribers are migrated to Sirius and the XM satellites
are taken out of service.

Could they add to the existing network of terrestrial transmitters
operating in the XM frequency block, and lease the newly-vacant
channels (on a market-by-market basis) to existing AM and FM stations
or other content providers?  This would create a DAB system similar to
Eureka-147; an alternative for terrestrial digital radio, in case the
coverage/interference problems of IBOC are found to be insurmountable.

Mark