Now that the Sirius and XM merger has been officially completed, having received the approval from both the Department of Justice back in May of 2008 and more recently from the FCC, they are now operating under the official name of Sirius XM Radio Inc.

Now that the merger, which seemed to take forever from a consumer stand point is wrapped up we can hopefully move on to some of the perks that are expected to come as a result.

As part of the approval process, the FCC did require some stipulations, of which should make most current or even potential customers very happy.

First off, it looks like we will be seeing the new interoperable radios that will work with either the full lineup of Sirius or XM channels by early in 2009, most likely within the first quarter. However according to some statements from CEO Mel Karmazin we can expect to see some models make the debut during CES 2009, and he also went on to tease just a little claiming that they were “very cool.”

Other guidelines for the merger included a three-year cap on prices and lower-cost plans that are expected to come in the form of a-la-carte packages. This is where it gets interesting for me, speaking personally as an existing Sirius customer, I generally listen to just a handful of channels at most. While its nice that I have all that programming available, I would much rather choose a lower priced plan with just the few channels that I actually listen to.

According to Mel Karmazin the important item to remember here is that there is a difference between the interoperable radios and the a-la-carte packages. The good news coming from that is those packages are expected to be available sometime this Fall, and programming decisions expected to come within just a few weeks.

It sounds like the remainder of the year and early next year should be an interesting time for satellite radio subscribers, I can only hope that things work out as nicely as they are expected.

Related:

Entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 5:15 pm under Technology.

Read more entries by Robert Nelson.
Stumble It!