[Posted on April 18, 2008 - 4:42 PM]
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Sen. Byron Dorgan (pictured) on Friday urged the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to block the $13 billion merger between XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. [XMSR] with Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. [SIRI], according to Reuters.
"This merger is contrary to the public interest," the North Dakota Democrat said in a letter to FCC chief Kevin Martin. "I hope
that the FCC will stand up for competition in the public
interest and deny this merger."The U.S. Department of Justice cleared the XM-Sirius merger, which weds the two largest providers of satellite radio, in March. Despite Dorgan's protests, communications regulators are expected to approve the deal, although they may impose conditions, such as letting consumers choose which radio channels they wish to pay for, a practice known as "a la carte" pricing. After the deal was announced in February 2007, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin offered to make available low-cost programming packages and a la carte pricing, giving subscribers the option of picking 50 channels of their choice for a set price. Karmazin has also offered to let the FCC regulate prices of the merged XM-Sirius for three years.
Other proposals include requiring the combined XM-Sirius to make 5% of its channel capacity available to non-commercial educational programming while charging them a nominal fee. That would parallel requirements adopted for satellite TV companies under the 1992 Cable Act. -- Alain Sherter
See April 18 story of the Sirius-XM deal from Reuters
See March 28 story on DOJ ruling on Sirius-XM from TheDeal.com
See April 11 story on lobbying over Sirius-XM from TheDeal.com
