The FCC has recently issued a competitive report and analysis on satellite communications services, and the NAB is using it as an opportunity to spin the report's findings in their favor.
The NAB issued a statement stating that the recent FCC analysis determined that the relevant market for satellite radio consists solely of XM and Sirius - something that is being echoed (almost word for word) in several industry publications. Below is a quote from the all mighty NAB President/CEO David K. Rehr:
"This FCC decision that the current duopoly of XM and Sirius do not compete with radio, iPods or any other audio sources in the satellite radio market further undermines the arguments made by XM and Sirius to obtain a government-sanctioned monopoly. While the FCC clearly intends to examine all issues surrounding the XM/Sirius merger, the hurdle the parties must overcome to convince the FCC to change direction is very high. This is a dramatic blow to XM/Sirius' presumption of a broader market, and still more evidence that XM and Sirius compete ferociously against each other in the market for nationwide multichannel mobile audio services, and no one else."
It really reads like doom-and-gloom (as is the purpose of issuing such a statement), but that's actually not entirely the case.
But yes, in fact, they're right... XM and Sirius are the only satellite radio providers in the SDARS market.
"Satellite Digital Audio Radio Services (SDARS) [...] For the purpose of this Report, we describe this product market to consist of satellite audio programming provided to persons within the United States for a fee. The most prominent of these services is SDARS [...] The participants in this market are the two SDARS providers, XM and Sirius."
If you read the report (which, considering that it's 69-pages long, most people won't do) you'll find that the FCC makes a statement that could be spun in the other direction showing that terrestrial and other audio services actually do compete with satellite radio:
"The relevant markets described in this Report may include market participants that use technology platforms other than communications satellites to provide services that compete with satellite providers. Recognizing intermodal competition is consistent with customary descriptions of relevant markets. Satellite technology is one technology platform, an input that can be used to provide a communications service. It is not uncommon for the same service – the same communications capability that a consumer uses – to be provided by differing platforms such as satellite, radio transmitters on the earth’s surface (“terrestrial wireless”), and/or wires (copper, coaxial, or fiber optic). These different technologies afford consumers substantially the same capability. A provider of each of those services may have a constraining effect on the pricing and output of a provider of any of the others."
The NAB simply is calling this a "dramatic blow" when essentially nothing has changed - the FCC's relevant market definition is still the same hurdle as it always was.
Read the report here: [Annual Report and Analysis of Competitive Market Conditions with Respect to Domestic and International Satellite Communications Services (PDF)]
worth reading,contains many many comments that imho ,run's counter! to the claims made by the Nab Spin Doctors.
"..the same communications capability that a consumer uses – to be provided by differing platforms such as satellite, radio transmitters on the earth’s surface (“terrestrial wireless”), and/or wires (copper, coaxial, or fiber optic)."
Sounds like they are talking about HD and regular radio to me. To extend that to IPods would be absurd. SatRad DOES compete with regular and HD Radio, but that is the only true direct competition.
The NAB is crazy to think that XM and Sirius ONLY compete with each other just as XM and Sirius' argument is ridiculous that they compete with anything that makes a sound.
The funny thing is, that in the end, the real loser in a merger is the customer. It may or not be a monopoly, but the self disillusion that some people have that this will ultimately benefit the consumer have obviously not looked at any other industry with one major player.