XM Satellite, Sirius Combination Approved

**Svoboda** · 03-24-2008, 03:46 PM

Been in limbo forever. I'll probably jump back into sat radio once it's final and dust is settled. I was an early subscriber of Sirius but let my sub lapse because of hardware issues -- basically Sirius was stuck with junk audio equipment from Audiovox, JVC, etc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...0fo&refer=home

**irish_bobcat** · 03-24-2008, 05:49 PM

Hopefully this means that Sirius could pick up baseball now. I like satellite radio for sports talk but not so much for music.

**grantland** · 03-25-2008, 09:34 AM

This is excellent. I get XM, now I will get ND football, correct?

Quesiton and this could turn political though I do not mean it to.

When I am atwork late I sometimes listen to Michael Savage. I find him quite amusing. Sometimes he is a bit out there, however.

Anyway, he was going on about monopolies and how this combination was bad. However, in the intro and as an example of "breaking" a monopoly through the markets, he talked about US Mail and FedEX UPS, et.al.

Question, wouldn't you consider radio stations as as good an example of competition with satellite as FedEx was toUS MAil. Maybe not exactly, but closer than not?

**Svoboda** · 03-25-2008, 09:58 AM

Yes, his comparison is invalid and shortsighted which tells me he is speaking out the side of his ass, mouth or whatever orifice. While there may not be competition within the satellite radio industry, this was a necessary merger because they (satellite radio) are a subindustry within the radio industry.

They're directly competing with terrestrial radio, Internet radio, personal media players and cellular devices for ears and to have multiple satellite radio companies fighting each other was putting undue stress on the industry itself considering many of the other alternatives are free to the user.

His argument will probably be that since there is no competition within the industry, they can set the price to whatever they choose pointing to cable and satellite TV industry. However, there aren't multiple viable options -- it's either rabbit ears or bust. Since their main competition is free, they'll have to keep prices low enough to keep and draw in new customers.