An opinion piece in today's Philadelphia Daily News sums up the pathetic Sirius-XM merger process very nicely, albeit with an obvious pro-merger viewpoint (that is why they call it an opinion piece afterall).
I won't bore you with the details, because if you've been reading Orbitcast for any length of time you likely have heard all these points before. But the final paragraph wraps it all together very nicely:
"The Sirius/XM merger signals a total failure of the antitrust review system. Instead of protecting consumers by enhancing competition, the endless deliberation creates fewer choices and less competition. True monopolies arise when incumbents manipulate government to suppress new competitors. For the survival of innovative new technologies such as satellite radio, regulators should tune in and butt out."
I do like how the author uses colorful words like "hostage" and "hijacked" to conjure up visions of terrorist-like activity. It drives home the point. Sirius and XM - and more notably those who are employed within their walls - are suffering at the hands of indecision.
People are sick and tired of hearing that the decision is "imminent" or "likely" - we just want a decision, whatever it may be, so we can move on with our lives.
[Philly.com]
Thanks Gary!
Just more pro-merger spam.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Have some cheese with that whine.
The truth hurts when you aren't for it.
>>> I do like how the author uses colorful words like "hostage" and "hijacked" to conjure up visions of terrorist-like activity. It drives home the point. Sirius and XM - and more notably those who are employed within their walls - are suffering at the hands of indecision.
They really aren't suffering at the hands of the DOJ's indecision. They are suffering at their OWN hands -- because they've gone to DOJ asking them to ignore 100 accumulated years of antitrust law, allowing them to create an unregulated monopoly for no good reason other than because these companies want it.
One could argue that they've had plenty of time to decide; however, it is complicated business and the implications of this decision could be very far-reaching -- not only as it pertains to satellite radio, but as it pertains to other businesses who want to use monopoly status to better their own business situations.
It is important for businesses to be able to make sense out of antitrust enforcement.
XM/SIRI are asking DOJ to literally ignore existing law while effectively creating a new antitrust law by virtue relaxing enforcement.
Perhaps DOJ believes relaxed enforcement is called for in this case but wants to avoid a flood of new cases who are basing their decisions on DOJ's decision not to move to stop the XM/SIRI merger. Or maybe DOJ is waiting until the deadline passes in hopes XM will just walk away, thus rendering it unnecessary for DOJ to make a decision (which could have far-reaching impact).
There are any number of legitimate explanations for it having taken a year or more. The over-riding factor is that what XM/SIRI are asking for is well beyond the typical merger application, where you have a merger attempt in an 8:7 or 5:4 situation. This is 2:1, and the bar obviously should be extremely high. The higher the bar, the more difficult the approval is to obtain.
Surely, XM and SIRI cannot be surprised at all by the length of time it has been pending. I was surprised they actually had thought it could be done in one year.
a year to go over docs and make a decision isnt enough?
Thats like Coingress saying the Senate approved wiretap law is being rushed by them--yet they had all summer last year, fall, part of winter---oh yea--they DO have time for hearings on steroids in baseball and other things that are SO much more important then the security of our country--
Vote em out and impose term limits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why do you all care so much. Look, neither company is a business success. Remember when we were told 1M to profitability, 2M, 3M, 4M and so on and so on. This is a great product/service, that hasn't found a following in accordance with a business plan that works. You can talk all you want about how the merger will drive the business - it won't.
If the rates of adoption to the service slow and the only way you can get new subscribers is to give stuff/service away, then it must be telling you that something is broken. Who gives a rat's tail about NAB or HD Radio.
While I have a subscription to XM, I have to tell you that listening to ch. 54, Lucy, and 49, Big Tracks gets old and boring really quickly. I can't be the only one. A friend who HAD Xm and dropped it told me he did so because Chrome went from being interesting to boring.
There has to be a compelling reason to pay for something - Time Warner cable gets my money because i really enjoy the HD programming. XM - you've got to do better or you'll lose me and many more like me before you know it - Merger or not.
NAD/Georgetown Partners will not be the reason.
>>> There has to be a compelling reason to pay for something
It isn't right for all people; nothing is.
But I don't really know of anyone who has subscribed to XM and later said, "Gosh, it isn't worth it". My wife's promo sub expired and was cut off last week, she only listens to one channel, and she stayed after me until I renewed it yesterday.
For me, I listen to my iPod some -- but the truth is that even with the nice touch-screen iPod interface in my car, it is a PITA compared with listening to XM -- and even with a full 80Gig, it lacks the diversity I can get from XM.
So, there really is no alternative to Xm at this point.