Stilllll going! Just when you thought we had reached a lull in the meetings at the Federal Communications Commission, along comes American Public Media to keep the fire burning.

Rick Chessen, Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Copps, and representatives for American Public Media met on Monday to discuss a letter (PDF) it sent to the FCC last week. Yes, that's right, a letter sent late last week deserves a meeting.

The non-profit organization reiterated its letter (you think?) urging the FCC to require that Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. hand over 20% of its combined spectrum for "for non-commercial educational use."

[View Filing (PDF)]

Attorneys General from Maryland, Connecticut, Ohio and Washington - who all greatly oppose the Sirius-XM merger - feel they have found the answer to preserving competition in satellite radio: offer it for free.

This revelation was uncovered in a recent letter (PDF) to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, where the state Attorneys General suggest that the Federal Communications Commission lease a portion of Sirius and XM's bandwidth to a 3rd party. And that leased portion, should be made available, for free.

Does this plan sound familiar?

Radio & Records nicely sums it up for us, "the only entity that has made a pitch to lease satellite spectrum from a combined Sirius-XM is Georgetown Partners."

R&R adds that should the deal win approval, Georgetown Partners "would be willing to take a long lease on the spectrum and form a free, commercial-based satellite radio company," which it promises "will be richly diverse."

It's so nice to see these AGs coming to the rescue.

[View letter (PDF) via Radio & Records]
Thanks Nathan!

The National Associations of Broadcasters spent nearly $9 million to lobby Capitol Hill in 2007, according to the Senate's public records office.

That's more than 3-times what Sirius and XM spent on lobbying last year.

The difference, of course, is that a chunk of that money was to argue that the NAB didn't in fact compete with satellite radio. A rather self-defeating argument in my opinion (and the DOJ apparently agreed).

To be fair though, the NAB also used a portion of that lobbying fund to argue against the use of unused TV channels, known as white spaces, for high-speed internet (because who needs more internet in this day and age, when you could have... nothing, instead). They also lobbied over issues related to radio royalties and media ownership.

The first-half of 2007 saw a lobbying spend of $4.3 million, while the second-half saw an increase to $4.6 million.

[AP]

After the Department of Justice approved the merger between Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio, they issued a lengthy analysis of why they reached this decision. But many found that "analysis" to be severely lacking because little evidence was given.

Following their approval of the merger, the DOJ held a conference call to explain the decision. I'm not sure if this will satisfy those who'd like to see more evidence by the Justice Department, but it gives a bit more color than the three-page release.

According to Broadcasting & Cable, Barnett said that in several areas the parties do not compete, especially for current subscribers who have already purchased the equipment. Given the fact that the radios are not interoperable, he said, people don't switch between services much.

He also said they do not compete in the "most important" distribution channel: the OEM channel.

Barnett said that Sirius and XM have exclusive deals with automakers stretching to 2012, and that after that there will likely be even more competition for in-car audio, including handheld mobile broadband devices as well as AM/FM radio, HD Radio and MP3 players.

They did find some competition in retail that would be eliminated by the merger, but there wasn't enough people who considered the two companies to be the closest substitutes to justify finding that the merger would harm competition or consumers.

When asked whether the DOJ had approved the creation of a monopoly, Barnett said no, that it had not found that the evidence did not support limiting the market for audio entertainment to satellite.

He also said that while Justice took into account possible future competitors given the rapid advance to technology, that was not "one of the core drivers" of the decision.

Even without that assumption, he said, he didn't think Justice would have had a basis for challenging the transaction.

[Broadcasting & Cable via Orbitcast Forums]