At long last, after much speculation and rumour, XM Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: XMSR) and SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) have announced they plan to merge.  This merger has been a long time coming with speculation starting many months ago.  Both companies have been struggling to increase their talent lineups while  increasing their subscriber counts.  The merger will have to meet antitrust  approval before any merger would be allowed.  Although there would only be one satellite radio company, it is believed they are in direct competition with other forms of mobile entertainment like mp3 players, and mobile phones.  I believe that a merger is critical if satellite radio is going to survive.  It is tough for two companies to try to share in a pie that isn’t particularly large especially with big named talent like Howard Stern demanding large salaries.  It will also be interesting to see how this plays out with the Canadian subsidiaries since they aren’t entirely owned by SIRIUS and XM, and they might require approval from the CRTC.
After news of the merger, shares of both Sirius and XM increased, with Sirius closing at 3.70 up 2.78% and XM increasing to 13.98 up 7.7%.  Not a lot of details were released that actually explain how the new company is going to work or even a new name.  Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius, would become CEO of the new company.   It makes me wonder how the new company will deal with having two different types of satellites, and excess amounts of terrestrial repeaters.  Maybe after the merge they will attempt to move their operations into Europe??