gosuns

Just wanted to throw this out there. XM and Sirius are in merger talks... They have been going on for quite some time... Eventully its going to happen but it may not clear the FTC. My reason for posting this is that eventually if all goes according to plan you will be able to get the best of both companies because they will function as 1.

VeniceBeachTSX

So far only the New York Post has reported that story. Karmazin has flat out denied it. Not to say that it won't happen, but everything to this point is unsubstantiated speculation.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050126/earns...e_radio_7.html

Dan Martin

Howard Stern's head will explode if that happens.

TSX 'R' US

I smell monopoly... won't happen...

sygyzy

I wonder if their hardware is compatible at all? I'd hate for all our XM radios to be obsolete.

indydriver

If anything becomes obsolete, it will be Sirius, not XM. XM has 4X subscribers and much less precious capital committed to idiots like Stern.

NorCal

I don't think anything is going obsolete, including Howard Stern

darth62

I know Sirus is loosing a bundle of money. How about XM?

VeniceBeachTSX

Neither one of them has ever made money except by the most extreme use of creative accounting. The cost of launching the service is such that it will take more than a decade (in the best of worlds) for either of them to really show sufficient profit to pay off the initial costs.

Much like Cable in the early days. EBIDTA is probably the best way to evaluate these companies right now, but is full of problems as well.

VeniceBeachTSX

I'm pretty much with you. The reports make it sound like the lawyers have had discussions about "what if" scenarios. Not exactly unusual in any industry, doesn't really mean anything is going to happen, and in all liklihood pre-dated the Stern, Karmazin and other key announcements at Sirius.

I suspect the FCC would only approve this if:

a) It became clear that there isn't a big enough market to support two competing providers. This is impossible to judge at this point, given how immature the business is. It took a couple of decades before they allowed local cable companies to start merging, and will probably take several years before they're willing to say that this particular experiment is complete.
b) The two sides came up with a plan to ensure that owners of existing receivers were "grandfathered" in, for at least some period of time.
c) The plan ensured that the sole remaining satellite company was seperate from existing terrestrial radio companies, so as to ensure that there was some competition in all major markets. Pretty much the same way they agreed to allow satellite TV broadcasters to merge, because of the opinion that digital cable was a sufficient competitor in most markets.

In short, I doubt anything is going to happen anytime soon.

indydriver

Sirius is one of the best "shorts" in the stock market right now.

ricecake

There is another thread about this in Off Topic/Ramblings, and I wish I could merge the two...but there are a lot of interesting comments about this rumored transaction in this thread. A couple of my :

1. The FT_C will not review this merger if it is announced because it is in the joint jurisdiction of the DO_J and the FCC as a communications/broadcast merger.

2. It is analogous in a lot of ways to the Ech0star/DirecTV merger, and will be enjoined as a merger to a monopoly, The parties will try and argue that the market definition is greater and includes other media/content distribution outlets--but the DOJ didn't buy that in the Echostar deal. This one presents a high antitrust-related risk, and the parties know it. The only real "synergy" is scale enconomies and resulting savings. The only way it could go through is if they agreed to divest/sell off part of their assets.

indydriver

It would be foolhardy of XM to put their company at greater financial risk by merging with Sirius, who will die of their own dead weight. The real race to survival will initially be through OEM automobile applications/subscriptions. XM is killing Sirius in this critical area.