Sirius and XM merger.

The Washington Post came out with an article on Monday, March 19th that explains the merger between Sirius radio and XM radio. They describe how, by merging, the price for the consumer will be cheaper, and there will be more channels for the consumer to listen to. That is, unless you like C-SPAN. Apparently, C-SPAN (which is now only available on XM radio) will be booted out of the lineup on Sirius radio. C-SPAN's website describes, "We were unable to reach agreement with them for a new contract because they demanded rights for extensive preemption of our channel in order to carry sports programming." I understand C-SPAN is not that interesting to listen to or to watch but I believe it is an integral part of our democracy and media. It may not be considered traditional media but it is the direct, unskewed processes of our legislative branch presented to the people. There are no reporters whether left, right, up or down putting their own spin or their companies spin on what is going on; it just is. The merger is still pending in the Justic Department and the Federal Communications Commission. If it does go through, will C-SPAN be dropped from XM also? In response to C-SPAN being dropped, David Frear, Sirius' company's VP had this to say, [C-SPAN] "was not a highly listened-to channel...We have others that speak to public affairs, including BBC, CNN and Fox News."


Freepress.net puts a comedic spin on the situation, "Clearly, C-SPAN is rarely as titillating as the steady diet of celebrity crap, car chases and Anna Nicole Smith coverage that fills up much of the air time on CNN and Fox. but we would argue that neither CNN nor Fox comes close to the zealously unbiased political and policy coverage offered by C-SPAN, day-in and day-out. The BBC is a little closer, but still light years away."

"As an aside, we don't think it is a very smart tactical move for Sirius to drop the only channel that provides air time to government officials and politicans all day, every day...We suggest that Sirius find some other channel to drop in order to broadcast its sports programming. Otherwise, it should change its name from Sirius to Frivolous."
-Bob Williams, http://www.freepress.net/news/21843