I’m as much for avoiding monopolies as the next guy, but this one makes sense to a lot of people who know a lot more about the subject than I do. XM and Sirius had been exploring the possibility of merging, but according to current FCC rulebook, the plural companies can’t become a singular company. That leaves the situation at a standstill until, perhaps, the current rulebook is revised to make amends for the merger.
A combination of the two providers would make much sense because it would allow each to combine efforts and resources, thus reducing the immense costs operating satellites and then, of course, pass the perks along to you, the conscientious consumer. They’d be able to shed redundant program and provide even more specialized material and also probably develop new services and technologies faster, rather than focusing tons of effort on competition.
Great competition…it’s a race to bankruptcy at this point. The best funding will win the Satellite radio race and have a monopoly. Oh wait; they will still have to compete against AM/FM stations. Oh wait; what about those new devices, what are they? iPhones and every other device that will have streaming voice and data in addition to stored music.
Glad to have the FCC, those diligent fellows that enabled the AT&T/Cingular scenario you posted yesterday, on top of everything to ensure competitive markets. Any chance that we could have another regulatory agency, from the private sector, to compete with the FCC?
Probably not—the government doesn’t like to compete.
This was totally predictable. Anyone who thought that a merger approval by the government was possible should have looked at how the government nixed the merger of Satellite Television companies.