XM and Sirius Satellite Radio commissioned a survey among eight hundred registered voters from August 7-9, and found that a majority support the a la carte programming packages offered as a result of the merger.
According to the voter survey:
- 77 percent said that the $6.99 priced "a la carte" offering, where listeners choose the individual channels they want to receive, would be good for consumers. Voters were told that these a la carte offerings would be available on newly equipped radios.
- 72 percent found that a $14.99 a la carte offering, where consumers would select channels from a pool that includes the channels on one service plus popular selections from other, would be good for consumers.
- 70 percent indicated that the fixed "best of both" package, featuring channels on one service plus the most popular channels on the other for $16.99 per month, would be good for consumers.
- 62 percent of voters said the mostly music and separate mostly news, sport and talk packages at $9.99 per month would be good for consumers --almost three times as many who said these packages would be bad for consumers.
- 56 percent of voters said that the family friendly packages at $11.99 and $14.99 that exclude adult-themed programming would be good for consumers.
- 57 percent of voters agreed that the new programming plans demonstrate why this merger is good for consumers and in the public interest.
"These numbers are even more impressive when you consider that recent public opinion studies have shown the American public to be skeptical about the impact mergers will have on consumers and the country," said Robert Autry, partner of Public Opinion Strategies, LLC, the Virginia based research firm that conducted the survey.
One area where you did find skepticism was with the NAB's effort to try to block the satellite radio merger. Nearly six out of ten voters in the survey (58% agree, 31% disagree) agree that AM/FM radio stations are opposing the merger because the combined satellite company will be a stronger competitor to traditional radio.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percent.
[View Survey Summary (PDF)]
Amazing... As if both XM and sirius would not offer a tierer programming platform after the merger is denied? .. yea yea.. I know what mel said. I don't buy it either.
Great. Now we're allowing the voters to decide whether DOJ wants to enforce the antitrust law or not.
This gets more pathetic by the week.
Great. Now we're allowing the voters to decide whether DOJ wants to enforce the antitrust law or not.
This gets more pathetic by the week.
Since when do opinion polls dictate policy?
Yeah, the general public is so informed about SDARS that almost no one has signed up for it. They should really be a wealth of knowledge . How about an honest poll of current customers? What good does asking my mom what she thinks of the merger? She has no fucking clue what SDARS is or what it offers. Like all numbers, these are completely meaningless stats.
Stackpointer = David Rear
How dare the companies ask people how they feel about the merger. Consumers should have no opinion in the matter. Only Stack is qualified to represent how everyone should feel about the merger. After all, he has proven himself smarter than all those Harvard MBA's covering the merger by providing undeniable, unbiased proof that every one of them is wrong about the synergies. On top of that, he consistently proves that XM is the better service even though 62% of the public chooses Sirius at retail. And he proved without a doubt that pirated music is just a "temporary market condition" and thus the iPod will no longer have an advantage over satellite radio.
StackPointer gets more pathetic by the week.
test
Why would "feelings" have anything to do with it? You think DOJ should poll the citizens to see whether to enforce the law?
No, I think the DOJ should just poll you, since you are the perfect unbiased, sensible representative for the common satellite radio subscriber. You know that the poor consumers will suffer under an evil Mel Karmazin monopoly, and will be forced to pay every month for worse service because nobody else offers a Bob Dylan channel. Thank you for looking out for me, and give 'em hell at your meeting with the DOJ.
I do some consulting work with the NAB and agree with "pfreak" that polling non-satellite subscribers yields little useful intelligence, as they have no basis on which to base their opinion outside of the information presented to them by the pollster. In addition, their non-subscriber status affects their opinion of the a la carte options, which rely on the purchase of a new receiver. That's a non-issue if you're a non-subscriber, but someone who has already invested in a receiver isn't going to be thrilled that they have to purchase all new equipment to take advantage of the new offerings. So that said, I'd be much more interested in seeing numbers from current subscribers than the general public.
Get ready... The merger is about to be approved... I know what I've said in the past few entries here but someone is sleeping with the right people... I hate that it will be approved but there you go hu??
This merger will get approved weather we want it or not. But For Us People who love XM, Say Bye Bye, I'm sure overtime everything will become Sirius.
FCC Governement and everyone else, should understand Mel is like clear channel, he is out to rule the satellite radio market. And a lot of jobs will be cut and thats just what we need. Why do you think Hugh Panero ran out of there before Mel could give another speech? BINGO he didn't want to get fired.