Members of Congress Claim XM/Sirius Merger Would Increase Programming Diversity

Eleven members of Congress came out in support of the proposed merger between XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio in a letter of support that was sent to the chairman of the FCC and posted on siriusmerger.com (PDF). In the letter, the ten Democrats and one Republican who signed the letter pointed out that

"consumers have a plethora of choices for their music and audio entertainment needs -- the Apple I-Pod [sic], their personal music collections, HD Radio, internet music services like Rhapsody and Yahoo music [sic], music and audio content through their cable or satellite TV subscriptions, content streaming through cellular phone technology, and terrestrial and satellite radio."

The letter goes on to vilify consolidation in terrestrial radio for reducing consumer choice, but claims that consolidation between Sirius and XM would nonetheless offer a wider range of programming:

"This merger will allow the companies to offer more diverse content by consolidating programming and better utilizing capacity to offer even more unique and diverse programming to currently underserved populations."

I don't really get how collapsing the two services together will result in more programming diversity, and the part about "underserved populations" is a bit of a mystery as well, because I thought their satellites already covered the whole country.

(via orbitcast)