Sirus & XM Satellite Radio Merger

[TB Roye]

Just go a Email from Sirius Satellite Radio notifying me that they and Xm St radio are in the process of merging. Supposed to be finalized by end of year.

Tom

[SHADOWFOX]

They are going to have to. Both companies stocks are down and both are deep in debt and continues to lose money. If this merge does not get approved both companies will unfortunately go out of business.

[LCHIEN]

They are going to have to. Both companies stocks are down and both are deep in debt and continues to lose money. If this merge does not get approved both companies will unfortunately go out of business.

I can understand. But don't they and their customers have different hardware? E.g. an XM receiver will not receive Sirius?

So I imagine step one will be to consolidate programming - keep the most popular channels of each.
Step two will probably be the elimination of one set of hardware. That means that they will probably have to have some sort of hardware offering at peace-keeping prices (or maybe not). One side will lose and have to buy all new hardware. Particularly hard hit will be those with built in radios (in-dash units) or modules in stereo/home entertainment systems. Less hard hit will be those with component receivers for stereos and PC plug in cards. Unfortunately the bulwark of their business is auto receivers and most of those are built-ins so there's going to be a lot of unhappy customers. I guess they figure they'll lose some.

ALso the subscription service price may rise since there will be no more competition.

[TB Roye]

If thr price rises to much I will be done. The paid way to much For garbage mouth Stern.


Tom

[Ed62]

I saw this on the news last night, but I don't subscribe to either one.

Ed

[crokett]

Wife and I have Sirius receivers (not in-dash) in our cars. Guess I will wait and see how this all shakes out. Technically I don't see why you can't broadcast the same content to all the radios. If I have to buy new radios I will cancel the service first.

[Kristofor]

Listening to As it Happens on NPR last night they were talking about the merger. It sounds like the US and Canadian divisions of these companies are somewhat distinct but use the same sats.

The gist of that is if the Canadians don't approve as well as the US that there probably wouldn't be any savings since they would need to continue to opperate both systems. If they did merge, likely one would be shut down, and subsribers may receive a credit to exchange for the newer hardware.

Alsol their analyst's take was that in order to win regulatory approval they would probably have to agree to only small yearly price hikes for a given period.

[tedkitch]

I actually have both services. I purchased XM when it very first came out and I have had it since then.

I purchased a Kenwood stereo from Crutchfield a few years back and it came with a free Sirius receiver so I subscribed to it to see how I liked it. It now resides in my wifes car.

I have a receiver at home and one in my car for XM and in all honesty they are basically the same. Sirius has the NFL and XM has baseball. As far as the other programming goes they are the same. I was never a Stern fan and with all of the money that they paid him, I knew it wasn't good.

I couldn't live without one though. The commercial free music is worth the price alone to me. We even installed an antenna at work and pipe it through the plant. It's nice as you don't have to worry about something coming on and causing problems. No morning DJ's with their stupid things and no commercials that you have to endure 67 times a day.

When we travel as a family, this is when it is the best. I've driven 14 hours at a whack listening to the same channel. Great stuff!

As far as customer service, I've had lot's better luck getting a response from XM than Sirius. XM has so many ways that you can contact the channels that you like and request things.

If anyone is interested in getting service, please contact someone who already has the service. Both parties can get a service credit (usually one month free).

HTH,

[scorrpio]

Haven't caught up on this whole XM stuff. When at any place where Internet is available, I can access tons of radio channels streamed for free. If you haven't checked it out, fire up WM Player 11, select 'Media Guide' (same menu where 'URGE' is), and select Internet Radio. The channel selection is massive, most of them pure music, commercial free.

When in car and driving far, we usually have our daughter with us, which means it's either kiddie songs or silence(when she sleeps)

[ChrisD]

I tried XM free for 3 months when we got a new car. Although it was nice to have, we did not renew the subscription when it expired.

My kids get Radio Disney on AM, my wife is stuck to The Mix (101.9), and I don't think NPR is going anywhere any time soon.