This is getting quite a bit of press as having a big chance of happening and saving both companies who are currently in bidding wars with each other. I was discussing this in another message board dealing with Opie & Anthony and figured I would post my comments from there over here and see what other folks thought. Would you be more interested in getting it if the sports weren't split between two different companies? Here is my other post:

Quote :

"I think they need to go the opposite direction on prices, downward. They need to set it at $9.99/month. If its under $10/month then it can be marketed to younger kids who are scooping up iPods at a voracious rate. Right now its seen as an adults thing to have, not something for younger kids, and lets face it, they are the future. The competition thing is easy to explain to Republican regulators. Its simple, with the digital FM or HD-Radio stations that are getting more clear signals, even if the current radios to pick it up are bigger than a Sirius unit (lol) as well as people listening on iPods with an FM transmitter, etc. these are all in direct competition for listeners. Satellite radio is still a niche market in terms of listeners and audience compared to iPod and FM, so it would be easy to expand competition to include all of these. I have mixed feelings on how a merger would go. On one side, I would be worried the boys might get dumped out by that shitdick Mel. He may use the syndication as an excuse to get rid of them, but some of us live in the South where they aren't on at all terrestrially. If they stayed they may also have a gag order placed on them by Hoo-Hoo again and we would lose that wonderful bit of content. But on the positive side, they would be on an even bigger audience. And it would be fucking great if I could get all my fucking sports, talk, and music on one satellite service. If I had my traffic, weather, NFL, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, soccer, and collegiate sports on at one place it would be fucking paradise. The bandwidth allocated would also allow many more of the more obscure stations to be on the satellites as well, as you could blend all of the rock stations, rap stations, country stations from XM/Sirius and almost double your available channels. Imagine going from the current number of stations to almost twice as many. That would be awesome, and in the end I think it would make folks a lot jump on the satellite bandwagon. Its really a pain in the ass to listen to my ACC basketball teams play, but when I get into the NCAA tournament, I'm in the dark. Thats not a great selling point for either service in my opinion, and would be AWESOME if it was finally consolidated to one all encompassing service."

8/17/2006 11:22:58 AM

It would be awesome.

8/17/2006 11:25:56 AM

i think the only way they will survive long term is to merge - enough of this - one has nfl - one has mlb crap

8/17/2006 11:30:44 AM

as long as i dont lose my lifetime plan i dont care what they do.

well unless they scrap all my good channels, but thats unlikely. i just want stern and commercial free music


edit: after reading your lil' blurb id like to note that i dont really care about double the stations. ive got a ton of stations right now that i dont bother listening to. in all reality, besides sports or maybe talk radio, most people are only gonna listen to about 5 stations. i've got 20 presets and i use maybe 6 of them relatively often and the rest here and there.

[Edited on August 17, 2006 at 11:51 AM. Reason : .]

8/17/2006 11:43:46 AM

would the gov't allow it?

i wouldn't mind if I could listen to howard stern every now and then on XM, but I wouldn't want the rest of the XM service to change

8/17/2006 12:03:53 PM

I love the sirius music channels, but i never really like XM's. I wouldnt mind a merger so i could enjoy the baseball and acc athletics, but i wouldnt want to lose the sirius music channels.

8/17/2006 12:31:48 PM

I wouldn't have to subscribe to both anymore.

I would be worried that w/out competition they would start adding advertisements and it would degrade to what terrestrial radio is now.

8/17/2006 1:01:54 PM

Quote :

"I would be worried that w/out competition they would start adding advertisements and it would degrade to what terrestrial radio is now."

yeah thats a pretty major concern. but theoretically (future) subscription profits + talk station ads should be enough...haha, like businesses ever have enough profits.


I'm curious if their technology is able to be combined...Do they use totally different technology so that you couldn't get one single antenna/thuner that would work with both networks?

8/17/2006 1:19:53 PM

they have recievers now that get both xm and sirius.

also, do you think they'd be willing to pay $ for good content (stern, MLB etc) if they didn't have a direct competitor that they felt they would be getting an advantage over by adding said content?

[Edited on August 17, 2006 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .]

8/17/2006 1:28:51 PM

depends. i mean stern brought in a LOT of sirius subscribers. obvious his deal was a little rediculous, but still.

8/17/2006 1:46:41 PM

Quote :

"they have recievers now that get both xm and sirius."

that doesn't mean very much. sure, they have decks that can accept both XM and SIRIUS inputs (which is the cd changer input). They also have decks which are restricted to one provider (i'm sure in those cases the deck manufacturer has made a deal with the provider)


the question is whether they have tuners (what you actually plug into the deck) and antennas that can communicate with both networks...and if not, can they be developed? Or would they scrap one delivery system (aka SIRIUS imo) and stick with the other?

8/17/2006 2:14:53 PM

Oh hmmm. I thought they were making receivers that could get both... Maybe I missunderstood.

8/17/2006 2:27:48 PM

They have been trying to make receivers that would do both, but neither company wants to authorize a unit that will also work on the competitor.

I am pretty sure they would scrap Sirius tech since its inferior to all the XM equipment and the sound quality on Sirius units is not as good either. After all XM has the real-time traffic and weather and has been positioning to launch a 4th satellite.

I think if they wanted to keep that content they would still pay, otherwise subscribers will bail on them altogether, but I think it would stop the prices from going through the stratosphere like it has with content now. XM paid something stupid like $15 million for 5 years of NASCAR and Sirius paid $103 million for 3 years! This ridiculous and exorbitant spending by both companies is going to send both of them into bankruptcy.

8/17/2006 2:50:21 PM

Quote :

"as long as i dont lose my lifetime plan i dont care what they do."

thats why i didn't buy the lifetime contract for sirius. i just got it hooked up a month ago, and I freaking love it. I listen to a LOT of different stations - about 15/day. I think their NPR programming still needs development - its only Diane Rehm and Talk of the Nation all day, but otherwise, they're great.

I got to listen to XM free when i had direcTV, through the tv, and i thought it sucked compared to Sirius. I'd hate to see them merge, since I'm afraid the quality of programming on Sirius would have to go down.... but, like others have said, I think it's inevitable.

if they don't do something to make the technology ubiquitous, like Apple did with iPod (in what, 3-4 years? when satellite radio has been commercially available since 97?) they're both dead. the main advantage I see satellite having right now is the artist/title info they display. I'm addicted to having that information, and I've found more new bands in a month than I have in the last year. that's an angle they should promote more.....

8/17/2006 3:10:59 PM

Well newer cars can pick up this on some FM radio stations now so its not a real advantage to promote.

And XM probably has a better NPR offering, as they have a whole channel just for Bob Edwards NPR radio.

8/17/2006 3:16:16 PM

^ actually, I understand that NPR has an exclusive contract with Sirius. I got that from an e-newsletter from Cartalk, so I'm pretty sure its legit. They have talk radio on XM, but not NPR.

Also, whats in newer cars is RDS I believe, but that might not be the correct acronym, I'd have to look at my dash to get it right. But it's just a signal tacked on the regular FM signal that gives some txt info, and in my experience (my BMW, rental GM vehicles) it doesn't work very well. It sure as hell doesn't compare to the info i get on sirius

8/17/2006 4:09:28 PM

Quote :

"thats why i didn't buy the lifetime contract for sirius. i just got it hooked up a month ago, and I freaking love it."

shrug, i've had it for nearly 2 years now, so ive only got another year or year and a half to break even. if they can hold out that long or have me keep my subscription when they merge, that'll be fine. definately worth it if it lasts though.

8/17/2006 5:37:32 PM

XM does not have NPR, that is exclusive to Sirius. XM has their own version called XMPR which includes the Bob Edwards show and several shows from PRI (such as This American Life)

I personally think a merger would be a good thing. However, I would not want to see Mel Karmazin be in control of the company because 1) I think he would gradually turn the service into terrestrial radio and 2) he would MAKE SURE that Stern was the major show on the service (to the detriment of O&A and Ron and Fez).

Sirius paid WAY WAY WAY WAY too much money for Stern. He is not what he once was. Yet they have so much invested in him that it is impossible to walk away from him. O&A put on a much more entertaining show anyway.

8/17/2006 6:54:19 PM

have ya heard stern in the past 6 months? im pretty entertained.

8/17/2006 7:37:33 PM

Quote :

"Yet they have so much invested in him that it is impossible to walk away from him. O&A put on a much more entertaining show anyway."

answer me this. who brings more subscriptions to their respective carrier? stern or O&A? You might like O&A better, but stern puts those asses in the seats (so to speak)

and why in the hell would they "walk away" from stern?...hes been the major reason for Sirius subscriber growth closing in on XM.

8/17/2006 7:46:33 PM

Stern caused Sirius to gain a fuckton of subscribers and go from being a no shit to some shit.

They need to merge because consumers in America are too lazy to deal with competing radio services that both charge money.

8/17/2006 7:51:32 PM

Furthermore, XM is partially owned by ClearChannel which is solely responsible for the way Terrestial Radio is. If anything, I'd prefer sirius to stay by itself.

8/17/2006 7:52:34 PM

Clear Channel only has programming control over a couple of stations for another year. After that, their contract is over. Part of the whole fuck you to Clear Channel on this has been XM getting in bed with CBS and sharing O&A.

Have you heard Stern the last 6 months? Your lucky your getting him half of this month at all, because he was supposed to be off for the whole fucking month, until the story hit the presses that he was going to be chillin' in the Hamptons all month. Then he made you zombies feel like you were being graced by his presence for getting 2 weeks of original programming when he could have taken the whole month.

No O&A didn't pull a lot of subs in when they came on the air at first, most folks thought their careers in radio were dead. But their new deal where they do the split shows is getting pretty damn good ratings in all of its markets, and is driving folks to buy XM subs to get the unfiltered show. In a recent survey by XM suits, one of the main reasons folks stated they were buying is for Opie & Anthony. Yea no shit they don't have the clout of Stern, they have been on how long in radio compared to him??? But Stern's star is fading and they are just beginning to shine. With him being relegated to satellite only and having no flexibility, he's no longer the innovator anymore. Sorry to say, because love him or hate him, he is in large part responsible for how radio and "shock jocks" are today, and without him Opie & Anthony wouldn't be where they are now.

8/17/2006 8:46:57 PM

I listen to O&A in the morning. Its fucking hilarious. Jim Norton is the meanest douchebag on the planet.

Stern is in some steam with his fans. Apparently his longtime producer's father died, and he couldn't be bothered to attend the funeral. Normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but apparently this producer has "made" Stern into what he is. (Which is trite, sex sex sex sex more sex shit)

What a dickface.

8/17/2006 9:55:47 PM

stern is an outdated prick anyways

8/17/2006 10:13:37 PM

Quote :

"Stern is in some steam with his fans. Apparently his longtime producer's father died, and he couldn't be bothered to attend the funeral. Normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but apparently this producer has "made" Stern into what he is. (Which is trite, sex sex sex sex more sex shit)"

I bet those fans are still paying $12.95 or whatever per month tho. And I think Stern "made" himself, I don't see someone else molding howard stern into the creature that he is today.

8/17/2006 10:26:23 PM

Did Stern bring some people over to Sirius. Sure. But he had a daily audience of nearly 15 million people and he brought MAYBE 2 million to Sirius. The reality is that XM has almost 3 times the audience of Sirius. O&A was hampered by two major factors: 1. They were placed on a Premium channel when they first came on XM. You had to pay extra to hear them. This severly limited their listening audience even on the XM band and 2. XM does almost no advertising for them. Stern had a TON of ads. O&A are starting to get the attention they deserve with the CBS deal and the combo of terrestrial and sat. radio. (in fact, they will be on Letterman in a week or two)

You know, you hate to harp on the Stern/O&A thing, but the reality is that it will likely be one of the major sticking points. The music channels wouldn't be a big deal in a merger, and the sports deals would actually mesh pretty well since the two channels have managed to get exclusives on most of them. So really you end up with a pissing match of who will be the main dog on the block b/t Stern and O&A. Right now O&A have much more industry buzz, so I guess we will see what's up.

8/17/2006 10:49:24 PM

Quote :

"The reality is that XM has almost 3 times the audience of Sirius."

what the hell are you smoking? XM doesn't even have 2 times the audience of Sirius, much less 3. More like 1.5 times. Sirius has 4.7 million vs XM with 7 million.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/currencies/2006/08/17/gm-xm-0817markets03.html

Not to mention Sirius has beat XM in subscriber growth for the past three quarters. The most recent quarter (Q2 06), Sirius had over 50% MORE new subscribers than XM.
http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_060807.html

Quote :

"Right now O&A have much more industry buzz, so I guess we will see what's up. "

buzz vs clout, we'll see who wins that battle.



[Edited on August 17, 2006 at 11:27 PM. Reason : ]

8/17/2006 11:25:33 PM

Quote :

"enough of this - one has nfl - one has mlb crap"

that's been the biggest thing thats annoyed me about Sirius; i get NFL but cannot follow my baseball team (go White Sox!). All these exclusive contracts (NFL vs. MLB, NPR vs PMI, etc) is annoying as a customer, and might be the biggest thing from renewing my sirius subscription come november.

I also think for them to be successful longterm and to compete with terrestrial (free) radio, they'll need to do this, or one will eventually topple the other.

8/18/2006 12:30:22 AM

^Thats my biggest thing. I'm a pretty diehard XMer but I realized today that it fucking blows that because of this I can listen to all the ACC Sports, EXCEPT the damed NCAA tournament. WTF?!? Stupid exclusive shit like that really bites my ass. I don't have the $$ to shell out $25/month for a receiver from each.

And your right, Stern has clout, O&A have buzz. Sterns name is fucking huge, but the industry is all about what have you done for me lately. Granted the boys get shit still for Sex for Same whenever their name is mentionted, but most people counted them out of radio altogether after St. Pats.

8/18/2006 12:45:45 AM

so one has mlb, one has nfl. guess how many terrestrial radio has (for the most part)?

8/18/2006 9:22:03 AM

O&A is doing a hilarious bit right now... Who can get more cabs, Op with a nazi helmet on, or Patrice O'Neal.

hahah its fucking hilarious.

The nazi wins!

[Edited on August 18, 2006 at 9:56 AM. Reason : .]

8/18/2006 9:52:28 AM

patrice is a scary guy, but yeah good stuff.

8/18/2006 10:23:14 AM

Ahahah Tad that shit was hilarious. I only got to listen to the first couple though because a fucking customer came in right then.

Oh well I'll catch the replay, they do the walkover right when I close up, so I can listen to that shit on the way home.

8/18/2006 2:03:28 PM

My mom has XM and I loved it. So she asked me if I'd like satellite radio for my birthday and I said yes. After some research, I decided on Sirius because it offered NFL while XM offered MLB. The truth is, I'd much rather listen to a football game (especially since I can only seem to watch or listen to Pathers games in N.C.) and catch baseball scores later. Since subscribing, I have found I change the channel on Sirius a lot less than I did with mom's XM. I can keep it on Alt Nation or Left of Center and never change it for weeks, whereas on XM I can't find a station that has a playlist I completely enjoy. But a merger would be freaking sweet nonetheless.

8/20/2006 10:24:52 AM

I've kept my XM on squizz for months sometimes.

But isn't the glory of satellite that you're not stuck with one channel? If you don't like whats on, you've got hundreds of other choices.

8/20/2006 10:32:01 AM

i use an fm tuner so the quality argument is out for me.

i only use a few stations (maybe 10ish max and dont listen to sports, which i guess is still better than regular radio) which makes the variety argument out for me.

i guess i just like quality, commercial-free radio.

[Edited on August 20, 2006 at 11:05 AM. Reason : oh, but i do travel a lot, so not having to find stations is a godsend]

8/20/2006 11:05:14 AM

According to economic theories, the profits from a given activity flow to the holder of scarcity in the process. To speak with brevity, in the current set-up the only scarce resource in the satellite radio business is the content provided. As long as Stern could have gone with either satellite provider then he is most likely going to pocket nearly all of the profits from his listener base.

However, this is not the whole story. We must also look at the form this industry takes. Specifically, the cost of serving each additional customer, (billing and distribution of receivers) whether it is the first or the trillionth, is very little once the very large fixed costs are paid for (keeping a satellite in orbit and manning a ground station to serve it content).

Of course, such a set-up is already recognized to respond poorly to competition, kind of similar to a route being serviced by a set of competing airlines. In the case of the airline it is the customers that control scarcity, they are making the airlines bid against each other for passengers, since either airline can service any passenger equally well.

However, this is not the case in the satellite radio industry. Howard Stern is only on one network, listeners cannot get the same service elsewhere, so the price is being set as if the provider has a monopoly. But it does not end there; the content providers have their own market, in which the two radio providers are bidding against each other for unique content, which they cannot get anywhere else. Therefore, like the airlines, Sirius and XM should be losing money every year. All of the monopoly profit from each customer is going to the content providers.

Therefore, if I was to theorize to net effect of a merger, or a bankruptcy for that matter, since the prices are already at monopoly levels the prices should not change. Also, the content provided should not change radically, since the new company will probably pay whatever it takes to keep the content providers operating. What will happen is the profits of the content providers vanish, since they can no longer play the satellite providers against each other. All in all, customers should be better served (no longer need to sign up for both to get everything you want) and the company shareholders not only avoid bankruptcy but get to claim the windfall profits.

Nevertheless, I do not feel this to be an optimal result, either. It strikes me that the best solution is to make the content market more competitive, not make the satellite market less competitive. I don't know how this would best be done, but I suspect introducing commercials to much of the programming would help. By making the industry more advertiser driven it would encourage content providers to seek dual distribution (on both networks) in order to boost listeners. This would sacrifice their monopoly position, yes, but gain them ad revenue. As the content market becomes more competitive, the network providers will be able to pass on far more than just these savings to their original customer base since as the price falls more customers will sign up, potentially reaching critical mass and restoring solvency to the industry.

Another possibility is to make the content premium such as with HBO. For example, signing up for either network provider is $9.95, adding Howard Stern is $4.99.

[Edited on August 20, 2006 at 9:38 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/20/2006 9:25:33 PM

Quote :

"Another possibility is to make the content premium such as with HBO. For example, signing up for either network provider is $9.95, adding Howard Stern is $4.99. "

They tried that with O&A and it failed.

Also, one thing that you mention is the upfront costs of participation by the customers. You can buy a receiver for $29.99 these days. Also, new cars come standard with a receiver for one or the other these days as an option.

8/20/2006 9:32:03 PM

Quote :

"Also, one thing that you mention is the upfront costs of participation by the customers."

No I didn't. I am talking about the upfront costs of borrowing money to put a satellite in orbit and set up a relay station on Earth to send it content, all of which must be done regardless of how many customers you have, one or a trillion.

8/20/2006 9:35:16 PM

If they added commercials to it, I would either expect to pay half as much for my account or I would turn it off. Thats a major selling point to it. Right now the main reason I keep its is for O&A, which need commercials to use the restroom, get some drinks, etc. so I understand about commercials in that context. The content is better on satellite, but if I paid and still got commercials, I am getting very little extra for my monthly fee that I can't get on terrestrial. I could just listen to 96.1 for Rock music and not pay shit and still get commercials.

I just don't think commercials on the music channels are going to get more folks to listen as no commercials are a major selling point for both companies.

8/21/2006 6:56:47 AM

^ Good point, but I should point out that commercials would only be useful in the unique content, such as Howard Stern.

The actual music stations are already close to commodity prices, so there is no monopoly pricing here.

And breaking the content monopoly would probably reduce prices by about half, I suspect.

8/21/2006 8:51:04 AM

^99% of the special content already has commercials, albeit far less than on standard terrestrial radio for the most part. During O&A they run ads, during sports, during talk radio, during news, etc. etc. they already have ads. The only thing that doesn't is music content.

8/21/2006 8:54:18 AM

^the only sirius station i've heard ads on is the Bloomberg radio channel, and I *think* that's a commercial station that they co-broadcast on satellite....

8/21/2006 10:26:21 AM

raw dog comedy has commercials, stern has commercials.

8/21/2006 10:30:11 AM

ahhh, ok. I haven't listened to stern once. i tried Raw Dog when I first got connected, but the sound quality was so poor for the bits I heard, i couldn't listen to it anymore...

8/21/2006 11:40:30 AM

^Yea sorry most of the news channels have ads. Fox News has its, Bloomberg, etc. its the exact same on XM and Sirius in that regard. Its just a direct feed from the TV stations for many of them.

Stern and Raw Dog and the XM comedy and Talk channels have breaks. The shows have to so the guys can take a piss, get some food, reorganize, etc.

8/21/2006 12:03:18 PM

dude sonny fox prerecords that shit

hes not in the office 12 hours a day

8/21/2006 12:31:11 PM

Well no shit, HE does, but its probably somewhat harder to do shows like O&A, Truckers (whatever the fuck that channel/show is with the truckers) and Stern pre-recorded.

8/21/2006 2:41:30 PM

Quote :

" would be worried that w/out competition they would start adding advertisements and it would degrade to what terrestrial radio is now."

XM already has advertisements on some of the pop channels. I'm really pissed that I pay to hear music, but nonetheless have to deal with 1-800-petmeds commercials between songs.

8/21/2006 4:01:43 PM