XM and Sirius to merge?
By Peter Rojas 
posted Jan 26th 2005 9:49AM
posted Jan 26th 2005 9:49AM
Neither company will confirm that anything is going on, but the New York Post says that execs from XM and Sirius
have been in merger talks lately. Doesn't sound like things are too far along—it could take as long as a year before
they put together a deal, and there are plenty of technical, antitrust, and FCC licensing issues that would have to be
hammered out first—but given how small the overall market for satellite radio is (especially considering the
infrastructure costs), some sort of merger or alliance like this might be inevitable (the big question is whether the
Feds would ever allow it).
[Thanks, Nick B.]
This was only a matter of time. Although could they pick the same format and co-exist as paid competitors? (i.e. Comcast vs Cox, etc.)
I think this is bad and I doubt the govt will allow it. The industry is small and in my opinion there needs to be even more competitors to drive services right now.
DirecTV and Dish Network (echostar) tried this a few years ago and got blocked.. i see the same thing happening next year. Personally we will all lose if they form one big company. We lose choice, and they will then be able to do whatever the F they want. Satellite competition is JUST getting started, with these two companies fighting out we're guarenteed to get a lot of good out of it. And its about time capitalism worked again in SOME kind of industry. I personally hope they get blocked.
intresting have been waiting any way since
i Like NPR which is on One and then BBC which is on its competetor don't want to have to buy two just for two stations
Given how much money has been lost in this market I doubt we will see another competitor move in. Merger approval? I just cant see it unless the two companies can expand regulatory perception of the market to include current FM and in the future digital FM (perhaps).
Did you say NY Post?? Mark article credibility -5. The writer obviously was bored or needed a story.
I'll stick with podcasts for now :)
XM is obviously afraid of Sirius if they are talking merger. I'm sure Sirius wouldn't have started talks. Karmazin would never allow this. While he has a history of mergers, he has only been CEO of Sirius for a few months. Not to mention the federal regulations.
Why the FCC would block the merger is beyond me. The satellite radio industry is pretty damn small, it isn't like these are companies that are utilized by the majority of the population and a merger would hurt the consumer. Frankly a merger would HELP the consumer.
The DirecTV/Dish merger was squashed because the satellite television market is much bigger than the satellite radio market.
I haven't made the leap to satellite radio because the content is fragmented. You have MLB on one service, and the NFL on another. Well.. i'm a sports fan... I want both damn it... and hell if i'm going to subscribe to both and have different hardware, etc.
If they merged, they could count me in as a new subscriber to the new service.
There's nothing bad about this. The cable companies and the pure-play video dish companies are looking to move into satradio already. Sirius and XM are bulking up for the inevitable competition from Cablevision, TimeWarner, Dish and DirectTV.
If you read a little more on satradio business, this becomes obvious.
All I have to say is... consider the source of this headline.
And what I mean by that is... the NY Post isn't your normal place for hearing about large business deals like this, is it?
Lord, I hope so. I am a XM subscriber, and I have seen some content only available on Sirius that perks my interest. Most notably the fact that they brodcast NPR, and the NFL.
"And its about time capitalism worked again in SOME kind of industry" (Jon Maddox)
Are you serious? Capitalism is individuals and organizations working out their own decisions in a free market of possibilities. If they do want to merge but the government prevents it, that is the OPPOSITE of capitalism. I, for one, wish that government, especially national, would just butt out.
I am so sick of "there needs to be this" and "there needs to be that"; blah blah consumer choice from increased competition. Don't get me wrong, I think more choice is great, but I DON'T want the government to force it. Sometimes a free market will restrict choice (namely when it is more profitable to do so). Capitalism does not exist to cater to the consumer, it exists to protect the rights of parties who wish to engage in business transactions. While you do have the right to choose whom to do business with, you do NOT have the right to tell a business how to run itself.
I will say nothing more in this thread, it just really grates on me the way people think they know what's best for an industry and are willing see their will done through force.
Sirius CEO just said he has no idea where any of this came from, just a complete made up rumor.
Mel Karmazin (Sirius CEO) says this is BS: http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=63682
Richard, no need to get your panties in a bundle. The government won't block this no matter how detrimental it may be to the consumer. Have you forgotten who is president? I can't think of a president who has been more pro-business than this guy.
Oh, and Richard...you need to get a clue as to why there are such regulations. None, zero, zilch regulations of this type ever existed UNTIL the freedoms businessmen had were abused to truely rediculous levels. That's the facts. That's why we have all these regs. That's why we will add more as time goes on (although not while bush is in office). Get an education. You might find it useful. kthxbye,
Marc
To poster #17, the FCC under this very same President blocked the acquisition of DirecTV by Echostar (Dish Network). While I dislike Dish because they violate TiVo's intellectual property, I disagreed with the FCC's decision. The FCC should've viewed a strong satellite company as a strong competitor to entrenched monopolistic cable companies. Instead, we have two satellite companies bleeding each other for the very same customers fed up with Comcast and their ilk. That is not healthy competition. This is also the very same FCC that imposed idiotic merger limitations on the AOL Time Warner merger (which contributed to that merger's failure) whereas the FCC did practically nothing to Comcast for acquiring AT&T Broadband. And what did us AT&T Broadband customers receive from that *stupid* merger? Higher rates and I might add, poorer service. Oh yeah, and a company (Comcast) that claims that higher rates are legitimate yet they seem to have ample enough revenues to try to acquire the Walt Disney Company as well as waste $700 + million on their continued operation of the G4 videogame channel. That dollar figure includes the amount of Comcast subscriber money used to acquire the more successful TechTV channel that Comcast-owned G4 then ruined by chasing off the viewer base by cancelling popular shows (like "Call for Help" and "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent") and ruining others ("The Screen Savers") to the point they are unwatchable. Oh, and throw in the fact that Comcast was an institutional investor in TiVo yet they never deployed set-top boxes with TiVo software, tried to lowball TiVo into a subscription agreement less than $1 per customer, and now deploys substandard Comcast-branded DVR set-top boxes that violate TiVo's intellectual property which is bound to generate a lawsuit further eating away shareholder value and subscriber fees. Did I mention that I h8 Comcast? I toast the future entity called Sirius XM radio.
The DirecTV/Dish merger talk was always interesting to me because I believe it was EchoStar -- that is, Dish -- that tried to buy DirecTV. That tells me that EchoStar has lotsa dough to play around with. And if they really want to get into the satellite radio biz, they won't need to go far, since they now broadcast all of Sirius' music streams as part of most of their basic satellite packages AND sell Sirius receivers to boot. I think it's far more likely you'll see EchoStar buy Sirius than Sirius and XM merge (although XM snagging baseball has me thinking seriously about getting one of their plug-and-plays to go with the Sirius systems I've been enjoying for a year and a half).
I know this is a little off topic, but what would happen to the stocks? Would my shares in Sirius jump from $6.50/share to XM's $30/share? I would love to cash out with that :-) !!!