XM (XMSR) Merger With Sirius (SIRI) Approved With Industry Already Dead

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Sirius_satellite_radio_1The FCC, after one-and-half years of deliberation, finally approved the merger between XM Satellite (XMSR) and Siruis (SIRI). It does not matter much. The business is dying.

As part of the merger approval, the FCC insisted that the two companies cap their prices to consumers for the next three years. With their major source of subscribers, new car sales, in deep trouble, the ability to raise subscription fees is critical to their revenue growth.

Satellite radio is in a great deal of trouble The share prices off the two companies show that. With a combined $2.5 billion in debt, negative operating income, and plenty of competition that did not exist five year ago, the handwriting is on the wall.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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