The day it was clear the Sirius (SIRI) and XM Satellite (XMSR) would get the FCC green light for their merger was supposed to be a red letter day. With the agency’s staff and chairman now behind the deal, what could go wrong.
In spite of all the seemingly positive news, shares in Sirius are only up 5% today. They would do better if Howard Stern said he would add an hour to his program every day.
The old excuses for the stock prices of the companies staying low is that they have too much debt, not enough revenue, and are not growing quickly due to competition from devices like the iPod.
The explanation may be less complex than that. The FCC wants to limit what the new merged company can charge subscribers for the service and what they can charge for receivers. This pulls the pricing power away from the new operation, and makes it almost certain that margins will be modest if they exist at all.
The government is writing a business plan for Sirius and XM that almost guarantees that their deal will be a failure.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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