The XM/Sirius Merger Gets Old (XMSR)(SIRI)(AAPL)

The price of newsprint must be dropping. Or, business reporters have run out of story ideas for the holdidays. One of the oldest stories from Wall St. is getting even older. Sirus and XM might merge.

The New York Times has the latest installment in a series of articles about the potential business combination that now must run in the hundreds. The Washington Post has done the piece. So has the Motley Fool. Ditto Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, and The Chicago Tribune. And, that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The New York Times points out that if the firms merger there will be cost savings in programming and personel costs. That’s novel. The Times quotes one industry pundit: “The services mirror each other tremendously,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst with the Envisioneering Group, a research firm. Well, yes.

The large open issue with a merger are that the two companies would have a combined debt of over $2 billion, and might have to go back to the capital markets for cash. There would be a fierce battle over control of the combined company and percentage ownership. The FCC might not approve the transaction. And, satellite radio subscription growth rates are slowing. There are, of course, many compeitors, like multimedia cell phones and the Apple iPod, the did not exist when satellite radio was in its infancy.

Other than that, it’s a good idea.