It's been 70 days since Sirius-XM filed with federal regulators, and yet the merger hasn't even passed the preliminary review process. The FCC has yet to start its 180-day merger-review clock, and that smells like trouble for many.

"This constitutes the longest application-to-clock delay in FCC history," David Trout of M&A Researcher says in a report Wednesday. "There is simply no way to view the delay in a positive light."

And the delay seems to indicate that a decision won't arrive until sometime in 2008. That's cutting it close to election time, when political attention is far more focused elsewhere.

"It seems relatively safe to assume that the intervention -- in the form of face-to-face meetings -- of several politicians and organizations represented by former politicians is slowing the preliminary review process," Trout continued.

This chart illustrates how long this merger review process is taking, when compared to other major mergers:

"Each passing day without the FCC's pleading cycle and review clock being initiated threatens [hopes for] an FCC decision before the end of 2007," Trout writes.

[via TheStreet]

The League of Rural Voters today announced their support for the Sirius-XM merger, joining with several other organizations who have recently publicly supported the merger.

It's an interesting addition to the roster of supporters, because while the prior organizations addressed the FCC's concerns on ethnic diversity in the media - this directly addresses concerns of adequate competition in rural areas.

The League of Rural Voters said the combined entity would offer listeners in rural communities more content options at lower prices than what is currently available from Sirius and XM separately.

"In many rural areas throughout America, commercial radio reception can be extremely limited. Satellite radio has offered listeners in rural areas a robust alternative with hundreds of specialized channels that meet the programing needs of rural America," said Niel Ritchie, the League’s Executive Director. The organization also pointed to rural listeners who depend on satellite radio’s emergency and public safety stations, while terrestrial radio's corporate consolidation has created so-called "local news and weather" service which are actually delivered from offices hundreds of miles away.

One of the key reasons why the DirecTV-EchoStar merger wasn't approved by the FCC was because it was felt that rural communities (areas where an over-the-air TV signal isn't available) would lose out in competitive choices.

It seems that the League of Rural Voters is seeing that the merger would be more of a "standardization" of the satellite radio medium - opening up the exclusive content from both providers under a single subscription.

XM and Public Radio International (PRI) are expanding on their partnership, now to provide the popular interview/call-in show "RadioWest," starting next Monday, June 4th.

Produced by KUER-FM in Salt Lake City, "RadioWest" is an hour-long show hosted by Doug Fabrizio (pictured) - who you might have also heard as a guest host on NPR's "Talk of the Nation."

The show packs impressive roster of guest hosts itself, including authors E. L. Doctorow and the late Spalding Gray, not to mention global luminaries like the Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu.

Doug Fabrizio has been the host and executive producer of "RadioWest" since 2001, and has won numerous awards for the show from organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists, the Public Radio News Directors Association and the Utah Broadcasters Association.

"RadioWest" will air on XM Public Radio (ch 133) weekdays at 1pm ET.

Next Wednesday, June 6th, XM will air a unique special that re-creates the radio coverage of D-Day, with archival reports from NBC’s original radio news bulletins of the invasion.

This incredible broadcast will air, in real-time, starting at 12:41am ET (which was the time of the first airing) and will end June 7th, at 5:45pm ET on The '40s (ch 4). The special will be based on the original NBC radio news reports of the invasion (currently housed in the National Archives) exactly as it was heard almost 63 years ago.

The marathon will also feature music of the era and archival reports from radio commentators of the day, including H. V. Kaltenborn, Merrill Mueller, and the other members of NBC’s news staff.

"Once we discovered that this material existed, we felt we had an obligation to bring it to XM listeners," said Program Director Marlin Taylor. "No one else would undertake such an endeavor and it is our role to keep the music and history of this era alive and available to those living in the 21st century."

Pretty amazing.

Andretti Green Racing's partnership with XM Satellite Radio has more to do than just talk shows and sponsorships. AGR used XM WX Weather for up-to-the-second intelligence during the rain-soaked Indy 500 as part of their arsenal of tech tools.

While other teams were relying on local weather forecasts to layout their strategies, AGR was using streaming real-time weather data delivered trackside to their team computers. The weather data is overlaid ontop of a GPS map, which then can be viewed in multiple formats. As a result, AGR can adjust downforce, tune the engine, adjust gear ratios, and plan a more informed tire strategy based of various weather data.

"With weather forecast to be a major factor in this year's Indy 500, we're happy to have XM Weather technology available as an additional strategic tool," said Kim Green, co-owner, Andretti Green Racing. "Racing is both science and art, and successful racing requires the absolute best combination of both."

And this same style of continuously updated weather info will soon be available to us everyday folks (in both GPS nav systems as well as in personal handheld form).

"XM is offering the first system that alerts you to real-time weather threats on the road ahead," said Stuart Cox, senior vice president, advanced applications, XM. "You're not just getting the temperature and the forecast for a city. You get the weather that will impact your specific journey, and this information is constantly being updated."

[WhoWon]
Thanks Matt!

The largest and oldest Latino organization in the U.S., the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has publicly affirmed their support for the merger of Sirius and XM.

"This is obviously important to LULAC, and this is likely to provide both Hispanic programmers and consumers with opportunities and choices," said Rosa Rosales, LULAC National President. "More programming means that the ever diverse American consuming public can look to Satellite radio for news and entertainment."

Several channels are cited as being important to the Hispanic American population, including ESPN Deportes, CNN Espanol, and several Latin music channels.

"More programming means more jobs -- from the on-talent to production crews. And more programming means that the ever creative and entrepreneurial American spirit has yet one more potential outlet and distribution channel," said Brent Wilkes, LULAC Executive Director.

Interestingly, in most cases, LULAC said they would support the maintenance of competition in a relevant market - but this merger is different. In this case there are "considerable benefits from the proposed merger" that they say outweighs any countervailing concerns.

There's an obvious media blitz of minority groups coming out in support of the merger.

While the NAB continues to beat their repetitious drum, it seems that the team on Sirius-XM's side is addressing the FCC's concerns of diversity in media. With minorities now representing nearly 1/3 of the U.S. population, it's a legitimate purpose, and one that can be directly attributed to serving the "public interest."

Hockey fans will be able to tune into XM next week for every game of the Stanley Cup Final, with three different broadcasts for each game. Choose from the home team broadcast, the visiting team broadcast, or NHL Radio for each game - all starting with Game 1 on Monday, May 28th at 8pm ET.

XM will carry the NHL Radio feed on XM channel 204, the home feed on XM channel 205, and the visiting feed on XM channel 206. Check out the full schedule here.

The Ottawa Senators will take on the Anaheim Ducks for the Cup. Anaheim will host Games 1, 2 and, if necessary, Games 5 and 7. The Senators will host Games 3, 4 and, if necessary, Game 6.

XM is set to become the "official satellite radio network" of the NHL starting with the 2007-2008 season.

(The picture above shows the XM Canada studios in downtown Toronto which recently played host to the Stanley Cup. Home Ice co-hosts Jim Tatti (left) and Gary Green (right) chit-chat around a somewhat creepy standee of Mark Messier in the background.)

Congressman Mike Doyle (R-Pa.), who is also a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, has recently written the FCC and the Justice Department, opposing the Sirius-XM merger.

Doyle said he was worried the merger would reduce the "diversity of artists" on the services. An odd assumption especially considering that both The Latino Coalition and the National Black Chamber of Commerce have come out in favor of the merger.

Mike Doyle also said that the resulting company would be a monopoly in the satellite radio market, and he complained that the two companies had not produced an interoperable receiver. Statements that seemingly echo the NAB's stance on the merger.

How coincidental, because it turns out that the NAB's Political Action Committee is one of Congressman Doyle's top campaign contributors.

But the connection between Mike Doyle and the NAB doesn't end there.

As it turns out, just over a year ago, the NAB hired Mike Mullen - and Mullen served as a senior legislative assistant for Congressman Doyle since March 2004. Mullen was responsible for all telecommunications, technology, consumer protection and health care issues before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mullen incidentally is the NAB's Director of Government Relations now.

[Broadcasting & Cable] 

It seems that everytime a lawmaker comes out in opposition of the Sirius-XM merger, they have some level of financial motivation. First there was Arizona's Mike Hubbard, who ended up owning his own radio station, and now it turns out that Senator Herb Kohl has his own financial stake in a terrestrial radio endeavor.

See, Senator Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks - here's the public disclosure (PDF). Now normally that's all fine and dandy.

But it turns out that the Milwaukee Bucks have worked out a deal with WTMJ-AM (620) to sell advertising for when their games air.

Previously the Bucks and WTMJ shared that revenue, but with the 2007-2008 season, the Milwaukee Bucks will assume full responsibility for all their broadcast advertising sales.

In short, Senator Kohl directly earns revenue from Bucks broadcasts on WTMJ.

Connect the dots.

Sirius is the exclusive satellite radio broadcaster of the NBA. If XM and Sirius merge, then XM's 8 million subscribers can have access to these NBA games. And a this could put the amount of revenue that Senator Kohl and his company can generate, at risk.

Conflict of interest? You tell me.

[via Yahoo! Finance Sirius message board]
Thanks Brandon!

Mel Karmazin isn't very happy about the stock price of Sirius, but compared to XM? "We suck less," he said at today's shareholder meeting.

Sirius' shares are up just 8 percent since September 2004, but Karmazin noted that wasn't nearly as bad as the 61 percent decline in share price over the same period by XM Satellite Radio.

The Sirius CEO blamed the poor stock performance on the overly negative view of the satellite radio industry, despite the achievements both companies have made getting closer to profitability.

Karmazin also defended Howard Stern's $500 million pay package signed with Sirius in 2004, saying: "He earned it."

[AP Newswire]