Ryan, is there any petition AGAINST greed and FOR the consumer?

Remember if you are for this merger you can help yourself in the long run by keeping your mouth shut. Silence is golden for you kids. :)

"keeping your mouth shut."

The last thing I would expect from a troll would tell a blogger to shut up. History Guy, this is a new low for you.

The merger will improve things for all involved.

Hopefully this merger gets shot down and killed. I’m a dual subscriber and would like to keep it like that. Them being one don’t help me or satellite radio at all. It helps Apple and other MP3 companies. Satellite radio is definitely competition though to MP3 players, Terrestrial Radio, and what not but hopefully it is seen differently.

I am a troll now because I am against the merger? Sorry if I am not lock-step with the party, but I have my own mind. I love satrad, which is why I am against the merger. I am a dual sub and I want both companies to succeed and prosper as separate entities.

Yes, in the long run I believe that those who support merging the two companies today would come to hate that position in the future if it gets approved. So, by not vocalizing it now they would have less to kick themselves about when the merged company begins to make changes that make them angry.

Apparently realwx is too stupid to figure out that I was referring to people who were going to follow the link in the future and not Ryan. You see if you read the WHOLE comment, you would see the plural of the word "kid". If I was telling Ryan to shut up then it would be the singular of the noun "kid". I appreciate Orbitcast and Ryan's opinion even if it is at odds with mine.

I have spent too much time clarifying an obvious point already, but this line is just for you realwx:

Go eat a bullet you holier-than-thou arrogant ass.

I can understand Sirius shareholders supporting the merger -- after all, they're in a mess without it.

But I'm not sure how any rational consumer could think that cutting the number of competitors in the satellite radio business from two to one is going to be better for HIM. It is a ridiculous proposition.

Both Parsons and Mel have, at times, referred to the "competition" in satellite radio as a "healthy" thing. So, now, what, it is suddenly "unhealthy"?

While the merger may be great for Sirius shareholders (probably not), there is no way in hell it is a good thing for consumers. Less choice, higher prices, more advertising.

While I am jealous that some are able/willing to pay two subs.. the bottom line is I want one service with the best of both worlds. Until that happens, I choose neither. This is why the merger is a must, as far as I'm concerned - why should I pay two sat radio subscriptions when I can only listen to one at any given time? I am quite sure I'm not alone on this.

While I'm jealous of those who are able/willing to justify paying two subs.. I want the best of both worlds and choose neither until I can get it. I'm sure I'm not alone on this. I will not pay one service for MLB and another for NFL. No way.

You are naive if you believe you're going to get NFL and MLB as part of one tidy $13/month fee. Not going to happen.

If you get both, you're going to have to pay for both.

While there is little doubt a "combined" subscription will be available at a slight discount ($20/month?), that could happen just as easily without a merger.

That's cute HistoryGuy, telling the website administrator to shut up and telling another to "eat a bullet". Those are exactly the kind of statements you need for others to respect your opinion.

Stack - I seriously doubt that the "combined" subscription could happen without the merger - if the NAB manages to grease politicians enough to consider satrad a monopoly, then the combo subscription would likely raise antitrust flags too. And anyways, the big deal here isn't about having a dual-service monthly discount - the bigger deal is about needing two separate hardware sets to receive the content. That's why I have taken the same stance as nitro - I will not buy an XM or Sirius radio until they come out with the dual-mode radios. Until then, I'm just sticking with Sirius Internet Radio.

It's extremely hard to deny that there has been a lot of "destructive competition" between the 2 satrad providers, especially in the bidding wars for content and exclusive deals. I think the best part of the merger is that it could cut the leverage of the big boys that have been seriously overpayed thus far, like MLB and NASCAR, since they can't play the satrad companies against each other anymore. They can tie expensive content providers' fates to the success of the tiered programming packages - i.e. MLB gets a certain percentage of sales from the Sports Package. It would work out much better for the customer to be able to pick and choose what he wants from each provider and, more importantly, get it on a single radio.

I'm sure there are more people out there like me and turbo who want content from both providers but refuse to buy from either until they produce a common radio. That's what the NAB is afraid of. If they actually believed that the merger would hurt satrad customers, then shouldn't they support it?

JB, learn how to read. For the second time I was not telling Ryan to shut up. Try reading whole comments and not just snippets.

Hey, not for nothing, but I never took History Guy's comment as telling me to "shut up." All he's doing is expressing that there's no opportunity for those against the merger to sign a petition of their own. If there was one, I would gladly post it too.

Oh and even if he did tell me to shut up, I'd welcome that.

Seriously. That's the kind of communication we have here. Agree or not, it doesn't matter. Just voice that opinion.

I do not like the NAB and their back stabbing ways. However I am also against the merger. I still think this is a whole buch of smoke to confuse the enemy (NAB) and expose them.

All that Said... I DO NOT support the Merger.

But an enemy of my enemy in this case is NOT my friend.

ryan, I've got a couple questions for you since you seem to know a lot more than everyone else on this subject.

1. am I wrong in thinking that once this merger goes through, R&D in both companies would spend significantly less money since they would now be only 1 R&D department?

2. Is it wrong to think that these huge sat radio contracts would be significantly less if there was only 1 real satrad company bidding on them?

3. Wouldn't all these current dual subscribers eventually get a reduced fee once the merger goes through? I mean, they don't need it since most of them are made directly out of money but for those who aren't, is that not a good thing?

4. How do you see this hurting the consumer of Sirius or XM individually? They've said the prices won't increase. Once the merger is done and people have the availability of both contents, even if they decide to remove a station that you loved on sirius, would you not get a replacement channel from xm, which is essentially the same thing anyway? Again, I'm not talking about dual subbers who needs 12 different rock stations. I'm talking about the single subber who already has 6 from either company.

5. Do you really think the 2 satrad companies joining destroys competition.