Sirius Satellite Radio - XM Satellite Merger

XM Satellite Merger

For more details on this topic, see Sirius XM Radio.

On February 19, 2007, Sirius announced a merger deal with XM Satellite Radio. Upon government approval, the merger combined the two radio services and created a single satellite radio network in the United States, named SIRIUS XM Radio.

On March 24, 2008, the United States Justice Department approved the merger of Sirius and XM. The approval process for this merger was the longest in United States history. Approval from the Federal Communications Commission cleared on July 25, 2008.

One of the issues that the FCC has been called to resolve is the fact that, 10 years after initiating operations, both Sirius and XM have kept the United States' outlying states and territories in the dark. Rep. José E. Serrano, several members of the Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus, headed by Senate of Puerto Rico President Kenneth McClintock and a resolution of the Puerto Rico Senate have called upon the FCC to require the merged company to offer service to the outlying areas of the US within a given timeframe as a condition for the merger.

As a result of Serrano and McClintock's efforts, Sirius made a written commitment in the FCC docket to offer service in Puerto Rico within three months of the merger approval. The application with the FCC for 20 additional repeaters in Puerto Rico was filed on October 27, 2008. Sirius XM was granted temporary authority for these repeaters in September 2009.

On July 25, 2008, after 17 months, the merger was approved in a 3–2 vote by the FCC. The companies voluntarily agreed to stipulations that include setting aside 8% of their channels for public interest and minority programming, 3 year price cap, as well as a A-La-Carte pricing available within 3 months of deal closure.