Sirius and XM to merge!

Wow. I know there’s been rumblings of a merger for quite some time, but they actually announced it yesterday. XM and Sirius are going to become one entity.

For those of you that don’t know, XM and Sirius are satellite radio providers. You pay them a monthly fee and you can get access to tons of commercial free music, and things like sports and talk radio. The genres of music are awesome too. AND, many stations aren’t censored at all. So you can hear some songs you would never hear on terrestrial radio. Once I started listening to satellite radio, there was no going back. Normal radio is repetitious, one-dimensional, commercial-filled crap.

I was a subscriber to XM for a number of years, but switched over to Sirius when they got the NFL. I was able to listed to every Miami Dolphin game live, and that (along with Howard Stern) was enough to get me to switch over. I liked the music on XM slightly better, but those two things flip-flopped me to Sirius. Now that they are merging, it’s going to be the best of both worlds. I’m actually really excited to see what comes out of it.

Here’s the one problem. The FCC has been wanting to regulate satellite radio for years, and in order for this merger to pass regulatory approval, I’m hoping they don’t want concessions. I want to hear the things I pay for in an uncensored way. If the FCC starts putting restrictions on satellite like they do on normal broadcasts, it’s going to suck the life out of satellite radio. Here’s hoping they keep their hands off the content.