Comments on: The DOJ Finally Realizes That A Sirius/XM Radio Merger Isn’t a Serious Threat to Anyone

By: What Do Sirius and Blu-ray Have In Common? (Hint: Nothing Good). | Blog from YODspica LTD

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:30:31 +0000

[...] described above that they spent billions blindly driving towards this El Dorado market, utterly ignoring their balance sheets along the [...]

By: What Do Sirius and Blu-ray Have In Common? (Hint: Nothing Good). | Spin Valley Post

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:31:27 +0000

[...] described above that they spent billions blindly driving towards this El Dorado market, utterly ignoring their balance sheets along the [...]

By: What Do Sirius and Blu-ray Have In Common? (Hint: Nothing Good).

What Do Sirius and Blu-ray Have In Common? (Hint: Nothing Good). — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:51:08 +0000

[...] described above that they spent billions blindly driving towards this El Dorado market, utterly ignoring their balance sheets along the [...]

By: Call For Help - March 25th, 2008 - Sirius / XM / Linksys WRT600N Review and Live Calls | BestTechie.net

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:37:42 +0000

[...] Sirius / XM Merger Approved http://www.tech...erger-isnt-a-se... [...]

By: The YouCastr Blog » The Future of Radio

The YouCastr Blog » The Future of Radio — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:33:59 +0000

[...] summed it up really nicely with their post: The DOJ Finally Realizes That A Sirius/XM Radio Merger Isn’t a Serious Threat to Anyone Money Quote: “it still faces two main challenges: it is not free, and you really only need it [...]

By: Jason Maskell

Jason Maskell — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:30:37 +0000

I’m not sure how you can say that consolidating the only two players into ONE company was a solid move? It’s certainly not a good move if you consider competition in the market to be a good thing.

I am also not at all happy about Clear Channel being involved at any level in my satellite radio.

By: Jean Bob

Jean Bob — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:51:02 +0000

They have duplicate infrastructure, duplicate people, duplicate content like CNN. You support twice the people with half the cost, you can make pricing concessions and still make a lot of money. I see them probably auctioning some spectrum and cutting deals for wireless access on your phone and others. Plus, mobile live TV is on the way. Also, what Joel said,two way anything if you want or mobile internet access that is hands down great. Finally, I could see Google buy them in a heart beat. Spectrum, content and a recurring revenue generator. Better than youtube, for sure.

By: Joel Strellner

Joel Strellner — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:44:06 +0000

@danb, #9 – Despite that the bitrate is somewhat limited, I get far better sound through my XM radio than I do from any radio station here in the Sacramento, CA area.

I commute almost daily to the bay area from Roseville and it never fuzzes out like the local FM stations. Because of this, I am an XM fan for life.

As far as the bandwidth goes, give it some time and I think we will see some amazing stuff from Sirius/XM. I foresee the two-way communication and advanced computer communications really soon. Just look at OnStar. It uploads data from my car and emails me reports whenever I need to do stuff like change my Oil or put air in my tires. This is just the beginning.

By: Darnell Clayton

Darnell Clayton — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:40:14 +0000

I’ve always thought that an iPod/XM radio would be a killer product.

It’s not XM Radio, but Fly Tunes has done something similar for the iPhone.

I posted this over on my blog, but unfortunately Engadget beat me to the punch by a month.

http://www.enga...adio-to-iphone/

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:35:17 +0000

whatever. i listen to sirius on my laptop more than in my car.

By: Jeremy Splogmaker

Jeremy Splogmaker — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:01:08 +0000

Hi. Nice post. Jez

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:59:08 +0000

>How come they havent made a big move in this space?

Cuz they’ve looked at the balance sheet for XM and Sirius and seen that there’s no money to be made in it.

1) Small, finite amount of bandwidth combined with 2) large overhead production and administrative costs and 3) no potential for advertising revenue is a bad combo. Dealing with #1 and #3 aren’t options so the target has to be #2: bringing down costs while maintaining content quality.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:59:04 +0000

You got that right about “it’s not free” still being a major challenge. The systems also suffer a lack of local programming. If you live in a small/medium size city, satellite radio won’t carry local traffic so you’ll be listening to terrestrial radio during your commute anyway while paying for an unnecessary subscription. The merger does nothing to convince me that satellite radio is worth paying for: http://lowtecht...atellite-radio/

By: danb

danb — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:49:12 +0000

Asad: They only increase bandwidth by adding new satellites:

http://satellit...-satellite.html

That’s why the satellite business is so fragile — the cost of the satellite + launch, plus a 10 year lifespan is a hard pill to swallow.

By: Asad Akbar

Asad Akbar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:33:25 +0000

I was just thinking, why cant DirectTV and DishNetwork compete in this space? They already have all the content and the distribution method. They just need to work on making their receivers small enough to fit in a head unit or boombox, and continue receiving the signal as the car is moving. How come they havent made a big move in this space?

By: Asad Akbar

Asad Akbar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:30:54 +0000

@danb I wont pretend to know the first thing about bandwidth, but isnt that something they can lease or purchase now that verizon and others have to open up? Regardless, they are now starting to send video over the broadcast, so they seem to be able to have enough to serve peoples needs.

@NZN I have no clue what you just said. Terminator?

Look, there has got to be a better way to blanket large areas with internet access than with putting up wifi signals one by one by one. If they get the technical side right this really could be it. They could use the whitespaces google is referring to with their wifi 2.0 initiative they launched today.

By: Mike Doeff

Mike Doeff — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:02:12 +0000

Totally disagree with you about satellite radio only being useful in the car. We listen to it all the time in the house and I also tune in at work.

By: Jeff the Great

Jeff the Great — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:58:06 +0000

I couldn’t agree more about the iPod/XM combo device. Add in the ability to tag and buy a song OTA and you have even more revenue for Apple.

@5 great point…

By: jackmayhofferr

jackmayhofferr — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:56:10 +0000

about time!

I haven’t listen to “terrestrial radio” for over two years! Stern nation lives

No More Bullshit!

By: NZN

NZN — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:40:59 +0000

#3 – there are many solutions that work. You found yours. Sat radio has its own proprietary one. Its not going anywhere but up.

#5 – classic idea… Skynet. Tune in to more from FOX next season. Great show.

Sat radio has arrived. Now what? I like the potential uses of the company. Maybe now they can “get sirius about XM radio”. (brand tip) But the business model needs an expansion. Something to boost subscriptions.

Not sure Karmazin is the right guy for that job, but he did a great job getting this merger through. Congrats to him so far.

The stock could ride well one day… good time to buy?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:39:55 +0000

Finally! I listen to Sirius most of the day – in my house, car, and at work. I don’t miss normal radio one bit! I’m a little worried about the proposed idea of subscribing to packs of channels after this merge goes through – I love having them all – always something new to listen to and explore.

By: danb

danb — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:31:27 +0000

Asad — great, but there is just one problem: satellite transmission is not a network, it is broadcast. And in the case of Sirius and XM, they have license to a paltry amount of bandwidth, several Mb/s split across >100 channels. That’s why the audio quality is so poor, 50kb/s versus 128kb/s for most web broadcasters.

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:29:57 +0000

I recently purchased a new car with a Sirius radio. With the subscription, you also get free web access to streaming from most of the channels.

It’s a fantastic service, and with both web (home, work) and car, it’s a great value (particularly when compared to cable television when I pay a multiple in cost and recieve a fraction of the entertainment)

By: Cecil E Rudd

Cecil E Rudd — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:06:17 +0000

I only listen to my sirius radio. I haven’t listened to regular radio i two years. I also listen to it on the internet and in the house, I think the people who have it don’t just listen to it in the car, if they have a portable unit.

By: Old Ga. Dawg

Old Ga. Dawg — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:05:31 +0000

It’s About Damn Time. Now if the FCC doesn’t try to F-Up the process by trying to add any additional “BS” to the merger – so they XM/Sirius can keep cost down to the consumer. XM/Sirius maybe now won’t have to struggle against each other for new consumers and have a healthy business and consumers – hopefully – will be able to enjoy the best of both sat. providers in one “XM/Sirius” and better programing with savings to the consumers to whom purchase yearly subscriptions.
Look forward to better listening from XM/Sirius.
Old Ga. Dawg