Sirius / XM merger achieves dubious milestone
Apart from a couple snarky ads from the NAB, the XM and Sirius merger hasn't exactly been a thrill ride, and now it looks like it's going to get even more boring. The two companies filed their initial merger application with the FCC some 70 days ago, and the agency hasn't even started the 180-day merger review period yet -- making this the longest application-to-review delay in FCC history. Industry insiders are saying this might mean that a final decision won't be reached until 2008, and that's not even counting in the time it'll take the Justice Department to do an antitrust review. No word on what the holdup is, but between that service outage and a loud customer backlash in the past two weeks, XM's got some housekeeping to do in the downtime before it really has to start pitching the merger to the government.
[Via OrbitCast]
