If you’ve been paying attention to stuff going on in the broadcasting/electronics world, you may have heard that XM and Sirius, the two satellite radio companies, are petitioning the FCC to allow them to merge.  It was kind of bound to happen, since they both were burning through so much cash that they’d eventually have to combine in order to survive financially.  While I prefer XM to Sirius — and the way things look like they’re going to shake out, Sirius will come out on top in this merger — I don’t have much of a problem with it overall.

However, the National Association of Broadcasters has been tripping over themselves to get the FCC to deny the merger, which may kill satellite radio altogether if it doesn’t go through, if Sirius and XM can’t sustain the cash flow to operate independently.  Personally, I always thought competition was a good thing because it kept you on your toes, and I’m all for anything that makes radio better, but the radio industry seems to be taking more of a “it’s different, let’s kill it!” mentality rather than trying to learn from (and beat) satellite radio.

What absolutely kills me, though, is the kind of stuff the NAB has been throwing at the FCC to try to get them to deny the merger.  I mean, you haven’t seen so much mudslinging in your life — which, of course, leads me to believe the NAB is more scared than anything about satellite radio.  Dear Lord, radio from space!  It’s so scary!  In the latest shot, the NAB got some consultant (who actually used to run the Federal Trade Commission) to say that while some claim satellite radio is a “luxury” and should be left alone, it is, instead, an essential item and therefore should be regulated by the government.  What a load!  I’m sorry — satellite radio is an essential item?  Last time I checked, essential items included food, drinking water, medical attention when needed and shelter, and that’s about it.  The piece says that satellite radio is used by many people who have “modest” incomes so they may not be able to afford much, and many satellite consumers live in rural areas so they need to get it in order to have media availability.  The thing goes on to say that many items that were previously available only to the wealthy — phones, TVs, personal computers — eventually became “essential” items to own. 

I can’t even begin to tell you how absurd I find this entire line of argument.  I thought the basic premise of having money and belongings was that outside the basic necessities of life (the aforementioned food, water, etc.), if you can’t afford something, you either don’t buy it or you find a way to be able to afford it by working more or cutting back on other expenses.  To think that something as frivolous as satellite radio would be considered an “essential” item implies that you just can’t live without it — but if you’re not willing to put yourself into debt to buy it because you can’t afford it, then don’t buy it!  It’s not up to the government to regulate something so everyone can afford it.  If you want to provide a level playing field so that everyone has everything, do away with democracy and attempt to set up the country as a giant commune.  (And we saw how well that worked in the former Soviet Union.) What a selfish attitude — you don’t deserve something just because it’s available.  If that were the case, every guy in the country would own a 60” flat-screen HDTV.

Yes, it would be a shame if the people who previously had and enjoyed satellite radio were forced to lose it (though I’m still not sure exactly how allowing the two companies to merge would cause these folks to lose satellite radio), but I seriously doubt their lives would come to an end.  With each missive, it becomes more and more clear that the NAB is just grasping at straws.  While I think that there’s a chance I might not like how the joint company would run its stations post-merger, at this point I’m almost rooting for the merger to go through just to spite the NAB.