In February of 2007, Sirius and XM Radio first announced an intended merger of the two satellite radio companies. In March of 2008, the Department of Justice finally ruled that the merger would not form a monopoly. The National Association of Broadcasters ( NAB ) has been the most vocal in preventing the merger. The NAB is a group representing traditional (terrestrial) radio. Their strong opposition to the merger actually helped to prove the point that satellite radio would still have competition from other sources after the merger.

Now the ball has been in the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) court, and like any good government body it’s been dragging its heals on making a decision. The FCC has the power to impose restrictions on the merger, or to flat out deny it. It took the FCC’s chairman, Kevin Martin, three months to think it over. He finally decided yesterday, June 16th, 2008 that he will RECOMMEND to the other five members that the merger goes through. That’s right, it took three months just to make the recommendation. The other members now have an infinite amount of time to mull the decision over and make a decision, all the while the two satellite companies are drowning in debt and stuck in a holding pattern while they wait for their fates to be decided. I can’t wait to see how long they can drag this out for now, and what restrictions they dream up to make the merger more “fair” for the, uh, consumer. Some current restrictions being considered are making the company freeze its prices for three years and to give away 24 channels or so to “noncommercial and minority programming,” whatever that is supposed to mean. I’m pretty sure there are minority-oriented channels on both companies’ line-ups already. And what constitutes non-commercial? Are we saying public access, or are we saying give some over to the NAB? I hope Reckless Philosophers gets a slice of air time. What percent of terrestrial radio is mandated to have minority and non-commercial content? I’ll have to look into that.

All the talk of these restrictions brings me to one of my main points: Isn’t capitalism supposed to take care of all that stuff? We’ve already decided that the merger would not form a monopoly, which means that Sirius-XM would be competing in an open market. If, after the merger, Sirius-XM decides to raise their rates to $1,000,000 a year then I (as a Sirius subscriber) am free to not pay it and to go back to listening to crappy FM radio and all the commercials that go along with it. Or I can listen to CDs, or MP3s, or the sound of my engine hitting 9000 RPMs. Also, if I feel they do not have enough minority content (whatever that is meant to be), and I really want to listen to some, I can get it from those other sources as well and Sirius would again loose a paying customer. The point is that competition keeps their prices at bay so we don’t need to impose bogus restrictions on them in the name of “protecting the consumer”. My only guess is that the restrictions are really protecting something else, the NAB perhaps? Just speculation on my part.

Speaking of the NAB, it is really funny how hard they are trying to squash this merger. One funny one is that they continue to spawn “Consumer Advocacy Groups” like The Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio (C3SR). C3SR is funded by the NAB, and will not release how much of its funding comes from the NAB, nor will it release the list of its members, which is supposed to consist of satellite radio subscribers. If you like reading about conspiracies and are tired of oil company ones, try looking into this one; it’s very amusing. Here is an article to get you started: http://techliberation.com/2007/05/24/broadcasters-hire-republican-trio-to-lobby-against-xm-sirius/  and here is the merger listing on the FCC’s website where you can get a chuckle out of the fact that we are on day 374 of a 180-day timeline (which is not even correct, it is actually in the mid 400's because they "froze the clock" a few times): http://www.fcc.gov/transaction/xm-sirius.html . You can also read all of the documents related to the merger, including all the letters from “consumer advocacy groups” like the NAB and electronics companies that are mad that they didn’t get a contract to build satellite radios and, therefore, want the technology to become open-source.

As a real consumer (someone who subscribes to a satellite radio service, not a law firm hired by the NAB ), which scenario is truly in my best interest? If the merger does go through, I get most of the programming from both companies (assuming the bogus FCC restrictions don’t force the companies to give away so many channels that they have to drop some of my favorites). Also, there is a better chance that satellite radio will survive if the companies merge, so I can also continue to listen to commercial-free radio. If the merger is denied, chances are that one or both of the companies will go under. Most sources are betting that XM will drop first, which I believe actually has more subscribers. So more than half of us consumers will be stuck with useless radio gear in our cars and homes. We’ll have to buy new gear and re-subscribe to the other company’s service. Oh, and look, there will be a single satellite company anyway! So which scenario is truly in our best interests?

One last fun-fact and then I'm done: Congress has spent more time examining this deal between two companies that together make up less than 5% of the radio market than it did examining the Exxon-Mobil deal. Or Chevron-Texaco. Or even the decision to invade Iraq.

Siriusly, enough is enough.