Satellite radio merger a possibility?

That’s what Sirius’s Mel Karmazin speculated recently.

And here’s what Radio Business Report had to say about that:

Mel is just dreaming. No way in the world such a deal could win regulatory approval in 2007. We are hard-pressed to see the FCC ever allowing the only two providers in a particular communications sector to merge unless one is in bankruptcy.

RBR is wrong.

I can easily argue that satellite radio is not a “communications sector.” In fact, both XM and Sirius are tiny parts of the wireless audio entertainment and information sector that includes all of radio and other players in related fields whose influence is destined only to grow.

You’re talking about a potential merger between two companies that provide only one channel of distribution to less than 20 million subscribers in an era when there are ever-more ways to be entertained and informed by audio without wires. What’s not to merge?

That doesn’t mean I support such a merger, but there’s nothing laughable about it at all.

And the sooner we as an industry get that, the better.

Further, Mel is looking ahead to a different end-game for satellite – one that I’ll discuss in a later post.

And it’s much bigger than satellite radio per se.