XM and Sirius to combine; hurdles loom

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

NEW YORK - XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., rivals in the fledgling satellite radio industry, have agreed to combine in a deal that investors hope will result in lower costs, assuming it overcomes significant regulatory hurdles.

The companies billed the deal announced Monday as a merger of equals, with shareholders of both companies owning approximately 50 percent of the combined entity. However, Sirius will be giving $4.57 billion of its stock to XM shareholders, a substantial premium to the value of their shares.

Sirius' Chief Executive Mel Karmazin will lead the combined company, and XM's CEO Hugh Panero will stay on only until the deal is closed. XM Chairman Gary Parsons will remain in that role.

Read entire story here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070219/ap_on_bi_ge/xm_radio_sirius_12).

[serrebi101]

as much as I feel they should murge, one thing is sure gonna suck from it. Less programming. You can already see it comming. XM's the system is not on the pro murge lineup that the two murged would be offering. I currently have sirius, but I don't use it, frankly because there simply isn't anything to listen on it. The electronic formats suck, and anything else I feel I can get from the net. At least the system has trance around the world and a state of trance, stuff I'm to lazy to grab. XM is right now for sure the better of the two. The only thing sirius has going for it IMO in the music dept anyways is having it more programed like the radio[dj's promos etc], but half the time it's just horrible programming, so what you gonna do? Sirius's moddo right now is that they got Stern or whatever, so they tend to not care about there music programming. It doesn't help that I don't drive. Really, for me, a sattlelight company actually has to offer something that I can't just get for free online. Just my ramblings.