A recent article by Dow Jones caught my eye regarding the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.
"Meanwhile, the Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio (C3SR) has presented the FCC with confidential data that it says must be explored in a hearing. "A thorough examination of these issues is likely to lead to the discovery of additional evidence of violations of the Commission's rules and antitrust laws," a June 4 letter to FCC said."
Is this news? Confidential data? Please - this is crap! C3SR certainly doesn't represent anyone I know with a satellite receiver.
"C3SR was formed by law student and lobbyist Chris Reale. According to Shepard, the group represents subscribers opposed to the merger, but it has no official membership. Its sole purpose is to stop the merger of the two satellite companies."
The chimpstering continues - "If you go to switch services between XM and Sirius, you have to replace your entire receiver," said Julian Shepard, a lawyer with Williams Mullen who represents C3SR." Sharp as a tack these lawyers are...
The same argument could be made that someone needs to be sued so you can use the same box as both a Cable Modem or DSL modem. Again - this is crap, radios are cheap, and the whole compatibility issue hasn't stopped the FCC from phasing out analog TV.
So a law student with a lot of time on his hands is generating trouble for this merger. While I may not have a fancy name for a bogus organization, I have a lot of friends who have both XM and Sirius radios. Everyone I know personally supports the merger. The reason we support it is we all had to make the hard choice between one service and the other. I would like to have both.
I choose Sirius because I wanted access to NPR, which is not offered on XM. However, there are other programs on XM that I would like access to. The common theme amongst all the people I know with satellite radio is that the competition between Sirius and XM has not been a good thing as it has created a situation whereby one has to give up one set of offerings for access to another. We all would rather have one strong satellite radio system with 500 channels then two weak systems with 200 channels each.
One last point - no one I have spoken with seems to care about the competition issue. Between the Internet, cable, portable media, on the air broadcasts, and satellite there are so many media options that no single delivery channel represents a monopoly. If the markets can only support one healthy player, then please - don't let uninformed PR seekers kill the deal.
