Merger related activity heating up at the FCC
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 9:23 AM
Tags: 2, XM
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.
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Comments
It does look that way...(smile)...
Posted by: n2deep | January 22, 2008 9:40 AM
Indecency rules? Does this mean we will be forced to bleep language on Howard/Bubba/0.0 (oh wait, they won't be included in the merger)?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward | January 22, 2008 9:47 AM
The FCC has Sirius and XM by the gonads and will squeeze them for all that they can get. That includes decency standards. I wonder what else they want out of the companies.
Posted by: Paul | January 22, 2008 10:01 AM
what a proud week to be a 0.0 fan
FM=fail
http://wackbag.com/showthread.php?t=61388 = fail
Posted by: 0.0 | January 22, 2008 10:05 AM
Ryan I thought that the people who are howard an o@a fans could not post on unrelated posts, it makes this site completely unreadable. and I am a o@a fan but every thread is not about o@a and howard grow up.
Posted by: Plum | January 22, 2008 10:16 AM
"Ryan I thought that the people who are howard an o@a fans could not post on unrelated posts, it makes this site completely unreadable. and I am a o@a fan but every thread is not about o@a and howard grow up."
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
bet if i dug enough theres a post with plum going "hoo hoo"
Posted by: 0.0 | January 22, 2008 10:58 AM
People are so drained when the decision is finally made no one will care.
Also Now that the stock price was driven to an all new low and investors have lost interest on top of a hurting economy and market DO YOU THINK the price will shoot up to its previous expected target price still? Or is the stock tainted considering it was really only going to jump on hype. Truth of the matter is the company does not look good on paper with all the red ink and such.
And if they do put restrictions on SAT RAD regarding decency, I doubt it will affect howard-OnA-and playboy, etc. Its still a pay service and people pay for the right to hear explicit material. Im sure they already have a feature that blocks channels, and I guess if it did happen it would be understandable to only apply to the music channels.
Posted by: dave | January 22, 2008 11:08 AM
What counts I think is that the merger is NOT YET listed on the on the JAn.18 "FCC Items on Circulation" -page :
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/circ_items.cgi\
Once you see it there, the engines are cranked.
Posted by: Isaac, Rotterdam, Holland | January 22, 2008 11:10 AM
What counts I think is that the merger is NOT YET listed on the on the JAn.18 "FCC Items on Circulation" -page :
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/circ_items.cgi\
Once you see it there, the engines are cranked.
Posted by: Isaac, Rotterdam, Holland | January 22, 2008 11:11 AM
What counts I think is that the merger is NOT YET listed on the on the JAn.18 "FCC Items on Circulation" -page :
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/circ_items.cgi\
Once you see it there, the engines are cranked.
Posted by: Isaac, Rotterdam, Holland | January 22, 2008 11:13 AM
I am amazed we still don't have the (merger) answer.
It's been how long now?
Ridiculous.
....and Zombies and Pests: give it a rest!* Wonder why I rarely post here anymore?
*my new trademark, Ryan :P
Posted by: SatelliteRadioFan | January 22, 2008 11:15 AM
Thanks Issac
Thanks Issac
Thanks Issac
seriously. a good reminder
Posted by: n2deep | January 22, 2008 11:16 AM
I am sorry guys for the multiple post -- out of habit I hit CTRL-ENTER (send email) and apparently the webapp interprets that as mucho ;-))
Nice to know -
Isaac
Posted by: Isaac, Rotterdam, Holland | January 22, 2008 11:23 AM
just get the merger done before baseball season starts so I can do what I need to do, to get baseball on my Sirius radios.
this has been WAY too long a process for such a simple request.
Posted by: joe | January 22, 2008 11:33 AM
Notice how SIRI trades today?
Someone is buying.
Close 2.83 (last Friday)
Open 2.53
High 2.87
Low 2.51
Current 2.81
Up! Up!
Posted by: Isaac, Rotterdam, Holland | January 22, 2008 11:37 AM
@ Isaac
I clicked the FCC link you provided and found this as a Circulation:
03/30/2007 EB SM Radio, Inc., Order on Review
=) Maybe thats our new name?
Posted by: rey | January 22, 2008 2:05 PM
Great another big waste of tax payer money where they waste all of this time and accomplish absolutely nothing at all. This crap will go on for months!
Posted by: LAPTOP GAMER | January 22, 2008 3:36 PM
0.0
S-H-U-T T-H-E F-U-C-K U-P!!!!!!!
Go Cornhole Howard you fucking sheep!
Posted by: XM 202 | January 22, 2008 4:07 PM
yes, lets get this merger done so i can listen on Sirius to the NY mets as im not going to pay for 2 services in order to do that
Posted by: gary | January 22, 2008 5:55 PM
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Posted by: Male Enhancement | March 4, 2008 12:22 PM