Sirius & Rolls in bed

[Howard Glazer]

If I'm not mistaken, Sirius and XM are forbidden from merging under
terms of their FCC licenses, which require that two independent
satellite radio services exist. 

My guess is that two of the media megapowers -- Rupert Murdoch's News
Corporation, perhaps, or Disney -- will eventually buy controlling
interest in one or both sat-radio companies once they reach
profitability.

As for the interoperable receiver, everything I've read about it has
indicated that it's not a mandate, just a fairly strong suggestion with
no real teeth to it. I can't imagine either company wanting its
subscribers to have an easy way to switch services -- Wall Street hates
churn, and an interoperable receiver would mean large numbers of sports
fans, for instance, switching from Sirius to XM for baseball season,
then back to Sirius for football season, then back again to XM when
spring training rolls around. That's SERIOUS churn. My feeling is that
the interoperable receiver will never happen.

Howard