Billboard reports that a merger between Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, first announced in February of 2007, was finally approved by the FCC on Friday.
FCC chairman Kevin Martin (who did something good recently, for the record) positively gushed about the merger, declaring that "the merger is in the public interest and will provide consumers with greater flexibility and choices" and that "it will also spur innovation and advance the development and use of interoperable radios, bringing more flexible programming options to all subscribers." FCC Democrat Jonathan Adelstein, who voted against the decision, remained less convinced of the mystical powers of media consolidation, noting that he hopes the companies "don't become a fat and happy monopoly."
The FCC decision does come with some baggage for the company, in the form of several conditions. The conditions include a three-month "a la carte" offering allowing consumers to purchase only certain channels, a three-year price cap, the devotion of several channels to "public-interest" and minority-based programming, and a combined $19.7 million fine for improperly located terrestrial radio repeaters. The latter particularly was crucial in getting Republican commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate on board with the decision. Tate had initially been wary of permitting a merger between two companies with demonstrably consumer-unfriendly practices.
So the good news about this decision is that satellite radio customers will benefit from the FCC conditions and will be able to subscribe to both services automatically without having to pay new subscription fees. But the bad news is that there is now only one satellite radio company in the U.S. But the good news is that satellite radio is kind of a fringe format anyway. But the bad news is that it's a fringe format controlled entirely by one company. And so on...
