The HD Digital Radio Alliance has filed a comment with the FCC officially opposing the Sirius-XM merger... oddly enough, taking a seemingly opposite stance to the company behind HD Radio's technology, iBiquity.

The organization stated it's opposition to the merger while iBiquity chose not to take a position at all.

Both do agree on one thing though: they want to have HD Radio technology embedded into Satellite Radio receivers.

The Alliance added that HD Radio "cannot be considered a competitive alternative to satellite radio." Too bad their marketing message seems to say otherwise. Is this the vision for Radio 2020? C'mon guys, it wasn't that long ago that you said satellite radio isn't a "real business," and now you want a free ride?

[FMQB]

Adding to the list of merger-related activity at the FCC recently, iBiquity Digital Corporation held yet another meeting with members of the Commission earlier this week, according to a recent FCC filing.

iBiquity CEO Robert Struble and counsel met with Commission Jonathan Adelstein and Rudy Brioché of Commissioner Adelstein’s office. Their discussion was similar to previous meetings in that iBiquity expressed "concern" over competitive implications should the merger be approved.

Speaking of implications. iBiquity implies quite a bit at these meetings. From the filing:

"iBiquity raised concerns about exclusive arrangements between XM and Sirius and automobile manufacturers that could serve as a barrier to iBiquity’s ability to sell HD Radio receivers to end users. iBiquity also expressed concern that satellite radio companies may have used subsidies and incentives to discourage proliferation of HD Radio products. iBiquity discussed its concern that the merger has the potential to exacerbate these problems."

Interesting, so now that sluggish growth we're hearing about is XM and Sirius' fault? Seriously? Remember, some studies predicted that 1.5 million HD Radio units would be sold in 2007 (and that was reduced from 2.1 million), while other research firms, like Barrington Research, had hoped for a more conservative 1 million units.

"Our impression is that the actual unit sell-through was only about half that total," said Barrington Research analyst Jim Goss. That's roughly 500,000 units for the entire year if your math is rusty.

So the burden of that failure is now being placed on satellite radio's mystical "incentives" that somehow "discouraged" the sale of HD Radios. That is, despite HD Radio being all over CES this year, and being included in new tabletop radios that forgo XM in favor of iTunes Tagging support. Yeah, I can definitely see proof of iBiquity's accusations there.

iBiquity's solution to these "concerns" of course hasn't changed since last month - they just want the government to require that HD Radio technology be included in every satellite radio sold.

Oh, and Goss also added that iBiquity is getting $5-$6 for every HD Radio receiver sold. So, you know, requiring that HD Radio technology be included in every Sirius and XM unit sold has absolutely nothing to do with the interests of iBiquity. Nah... it's all "to insure a level competitive playing field," right?

[FCC Filing (PDF), Radio Ink]

UPDATE: Looks like iBiquity met with Commissioner Michael Copps and Rich Chessen of Commissioner Copps’ office as well. [FCC Filing (PDF)]

Only three weeks into the new year, and members of the FCC have met various parties involving the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. on eight separate occurrences.

Could this (finally) be a sign that we'll have a decision on the merger soon? Here's a listing of some of the reported activity coming from the Commission:

• January 3, 2008: The CEO of US Electronics (along with counsel) met with Comissioner Copps and his advisor, Rick Chessen. [Link (PDF)]
• January 4, 2008: Georgetown Partners, TSG Capital Group, and King & Spalding LLP met with Michelle Carey, senior legal advisor to Chairman Martin. [Link (PDF)]
• January 7, 2008: Chester C. Davenport, Managing Director of Georgetown Partners met with Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein [Link (PDF)]
• January 7, 2008: Georgetown Partners on the same day also met with Commissioner Michael Copps. [Link (PDF)]
• January 9, 2008: Georgetown Partners and the Reverend Jesse Jackson met with Chairman Kevin Martin [Link (PDF)]
• January 11, 2008: XM and Sirius, along with CRA International, met with representatives from the FCC to discuss the findings of the CRA study which determined that Satellite Radio and Terrestrial Radio are demand substitutes. [Link (PDF)]
• January 14, 2008: Once again Chester Davenport of Georgetown Partners, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Kimberly Marcus (also of the Rainbow PUSH coalition) met with Chairman Kevin Martin, Daniel Gonzalez and Catherine Bohigian. On the same day in a separate meeting: Davenport, Rev. Jackson and Ms. Marcus met with Commissioner Michael Copps, Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Rick Chessen and Rudy Brioché. And in yet another meeting Davenport, Jackson, and Marcus met with Commissioner Robert McDowell. [Link (PDF)]
• January 15, 2008: iBiquity CEO Robert Struble met with Commissioner Robert McDowell as well as Angela Giancarlo and Cristina Chou Pauze of Commissioner McDowell's office. [Link (PDF)]

Last month, RBC Capital analyst David Bank predicted that the FCC's decision would likely stretch to February of this year.

"We believe XMSR/SIRI management served up the necessary sacrificial lamb(s) by offering ala carte pricing and openness to variety of other conduct/behavioral conditions," wrote Bank. "However, our sources indicate FCC is likely 1-2 months away from fully fleshing out conditionality such as ala carte pricing, interoperability of radios, unused channel availability to 3rd parties, indecency standards and local content restrictions."

From the looks of these recent meetings, it appears that the FCC is working through those conditionalities right now.

I was going through the pile of dead trees from CES and came across this “iTunes Tagging” brochure from iBiquity.

When XM introduced the Inno, the slogan was: Hear it. Click it. Save it.
The HD Radio slogan? Hear it. Tag it. Download it. Never forget it.

Ah, imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery.

Side note, the elephant-minded folks at Radio-Info.com pointed out that there was a clear omission from the recent MacWorld: those rumored HD Radio products. Aw shucks, guess Steve Jobs isn't all the excited to do that "big push" for HD Radio afterall.

HD Radio has stepped up its presence at CES this year, with over 50 products being displayed at more than 25 booths across the show, and advanced mobile applications are being showcased this week as well.

Alpine, Sony, Polk, et al are all showing various products featuring HD Radio (the Alpine IDA-X100 pictured above), many of which include the somewhat buzz-worthy iTunes Tagging technology. The jury's still out as to whether iTunes Tagging will be the boon for HD Radio, but there's little bad that can come from being associated with Apple.

Microsoft and Clear Channel are holding a private demo of location-based services. The services - which I believe will be called "MSN Direct HD" - will immediately include things like location-based directories, program guides, movie information, gas prices, restaurants, and more.

Samsung, iBiquity and others will announce at CES next week that MP3 players, cell phones and personal navigation devices will integrate HD Radio reception into their mobile devices. So that means that you'll be able to listen to HD Radio on your cell phone - and it sounds like Samsung is right on board.

More to come...