spacetoday.net: FCC moves towards approving Sirius-XM merger

Posted: Mon, Jun 16, 2008, 12:56 PM ET (1656 GMT)
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is ready to recommend that the two satellite radio companies in the United States be allowed to merge, after winning concessions from the companies. Kevin Martin said in a statement that he would be willing to approve a merger between XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio, and would likely issue an order to that effect this week; approval would require approval of at least three of the five FCC commissioners. That decision came after the companies offered a number of conditions to the deal, including providing channels for noncommercial and minority programming, as well as producing interoperable radios that can work with both the XM or Sirius systems. The merger was announced back in February 2007, and won approval from the Justice Department earlier this year, but the FCC had delayed acting on the merger before now.