Date: 03-27-2008
The Justice Department has given approval to the impending merger of two radio rival networks, Sirius and XM, in a deal which will change the companies’ tunes considerably. The approval was granted by the Justice Department after it determined that the deal is unlikely to monopolize the market due to the increase in sales of other music-delivery options like iPods. Sirius and XM, the two radio stalwarts, proposed the deal early last year to cut costs, as both have lost billions of dollars on high-priced programming. At present, XM is reported to have about 9 million subscribers while Sirius has about 8.3 million subscribers. The deal is yet to be seconded for approval by the Federal Communications Commission, officials of which have shown conflicting signs about permitting the deal.
