While I do think that there are bigger merger issues overall (satellite radio is a niche market at best) I can't see any way this merger will create a better overall single company.
Sure, XM and Sirius have to spend a lot of money competing for programming-- what will they do when they no longer have to compete? What incentive will they have? If you want coast-to-coast satellite radio, get XM/Sirius or nothing. With all the promises they've had to make (not making any radios obsolete, especially) they are going to have a pretty big tightrope act. And adding "best ofs" to lineups (i.e., Stern/NFL onto XM radios, Oprah(?)/whatever to Sirius) is only going to make the bandwidth crunch worse on both services, resulting in lower sound quality, and/or the loss of other channels.
Oh well, XM's sound quality (or lack thereof) is very close to losing me as a subscriber, if this merger ends up being a mess I'll be gone. I don't care enough about Howard Stern to consider it a "plus" and if I lose a favorite channel to get 24/7 Howard I'll be fairly unhappy. I've been a subscriber to XM since 2003 but it seems like they've been going the wrong direction over the last couple of years. I'd like to think I'm wrong but history shows less competition almost never makes a better product. For everyone saying how great the merger is, let's give it 1-2 years (after the merger is completed-- so maybe 3 years from now)-- I bet you'll be paying more than you are today (more than rate of inflation increases), or won't be getting the same selection you are now, sound quality will be worse (to accomodate all the added channels), and probably at least a few of your favorite channels will be gone or drastically changed.
The only way I would've supported this merger is if they had promised increased sound quality using the combined bandwidth of both systems (and/or dropping redundant channels). But sound quality is one of the few things I haven't seen addressed very much, if at all, in the merger information.
Funny that, listening to music and wanting decent quality. (for reference, I'm not being an audiophile snob, XM in 2003 sounded absolutely fine to me, but it's never recovered after the March 1, 2006 drop)
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While I do think that there are bigger merger issues overall (satellite radio is a niche market at best) I can't see any way this merger will create a better overall single company.
Sure, XM and Sirius have to spend a lot of money competing for programming-- what will they do when they no longer have to compete? What incentive will they have? If you want coast-to-coast satellite radio, get XM/Sirius or nothing. With all the promises they've had to make (not making any radios obsolete, especially) they are going to have a pretty big tightrope act. And adding "best ofs" to lineups (i.e., Stern/NFL onto XM radios, Oprah(?)/whatever to Sirius) is only going to make the bandwidth crunch worse on both services, resulting in lower sound quality, and/or the loss of other channels.
Oh well, XM's sound quality (or lack thereof) is very close to losing
me as a subscriber, if this merger ends up being a mess I'll be gone. I don't care enough about Howard Stern to consider it a "plus" and if I lose a favorite channel to get 24/7 Howard I'll be fairly unhappy. I've been a subscriber to XM since 2003 but it seems like they've been going the wrong direction over the last couple of years. I'd like to think I'm wrong but history shows less competition almost never makes a better product. For everyone saying how great the merger is, let's give it 1-2 years (after the merger is completed-- so maybe 3 years from now)-- I bet you'll be paying more than you are today (more than rate of inflation increases), or won't be getting the same selection you are now, sound quality will be worse (to accomodate all the added channels), and probably at least a few of your favorite channels will be gone or drastically changed.
The only way I would've supported this merger is if they had promised increased sound quality using the combined bandwidth of both systems (and/or dropping redundant channels). But sound quality is one of the few things I haven't seen addressed very much, if at all, in the merger information.
Funny that, listening to music and wanting decent quality. (for reference, I'm not being an audiophile snob, XM in 2003 sounded absolutely fine to me, but it's never recovered after the March 1, 2006 drop)