Consumer Groups Push Issue on XM-Sirius

As the Federal Communications Commission continues to consider whether or not to allow XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio, the nation's two satellite-radio companies, to become one, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and Free Press, called the merger a "roadmap to monopoly" and asked the FCC to throw up its own roadblock after the Justice Department gave the deal a green light. They strongly opposed the merger. But if the FCC does approve it, they said, it needs to make it clear that it is not a precedent for other media-ownership mergers, nor a roadmap for others. The groups wrote the FCC outlining the "fundamental flaws" in the DOJ decision, which they said "abandons all of the most basic principles of antitrust analysis," and how the FCC should look at the deal differently. The FCC already must look beyond simply competition issues to include its impact more broadly on the public interest.
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