The XM-Sirius Satellite merger is imminent. Insiders are saying the Department of Justice will approve (and probably this week), followed by the FCC. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the competitive advantage here: Consolidate the satellite radio waves completely.

Clear Channel is railing against the “peril” of this merger: “[T]he filing concludes by suggesting that if the FCC approves an XM/Sirius merger, it should also allow Clear Channel to expand beyond its current ownership…of radio stations”.

I want to share a quote with you: “Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony [. . . ]“ That’s the Sherman Anti Trust Act.

I wan unable to find any information that this act has been repealed. Will an XM-Sirius merger monopolize any part of trade or commerce? If so, it’s illegal.

A perfect storm is brewing. XM and Sirius merge, Clear Channel sucks up even more radio stations to be competitive. With only be two companies left serving radio, will this have an affect on advertising and play lists? Will it lead to further erosion of net radio?

You can see a timeline of the FCC filing history here.
Here’s the DOJ’s Antitrust page. No mention of this merger (yet).
My favorite article: Merger Enforcement Is Alive and Well at the Department of Justice

The Bottom Line: An XM-Sirius merger is a monopoly. If Clear Channel is allowed to expand, then there will be only two companies controlling almost all of the airwaves. Whatever happened to diversity?

Here’s something from a couple months ago. It’s novel to occasionally look back at all of the information that never makes it to us, the media consuming public.

The FCC ordered all copies of a study on the localization of media ownership destroyed. This independent study examined the difference news coverage between locally owned and non-locally owned (i.e. transnational corporate) ownership of Television stations. Since there are no copies of the report right now, it’s hard to say what’s actually in it.

Thanks to some civic minded folks, here’s the clip of Senator Barbara Boxer ripping FCC Chairman Kevin Martin a new one, along with a description of the report. Apparently, Sen. Boxer was sent a copy of the report anonymously (Video courtesy of C-Span via YouTube).

Apparently, the study concludes that local ownership of TV stations increases the amount of local news coverage by about thirty three hours of news in a year about your area. Now, lots of local news may seem hokey and trite, but 33 hours more is plenty of room for real stories of value about our communities.

It would seem that the trend for the FCC is to only release information that is favorable to corporate consolidation of the broadcast medium, and all conflicting reports seem to be squelched. You can view two of these reports here and here, through the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting website. A few politicians demanded and investigation into this incident, but somehow nothing further has surfaced. It did take more than a few minutes of crawling through the interweb to find out that there was an inquiry made at all. That story never made it out as a press release. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be nay follow up on this story at all since then.
The Benton Foundation has a great list of link about the issue of media consolidation and local representation on the airwaves here. Of course, it’s not all bad news. The FCC started a new Review of Media Ownership Rules in June, so maybe this time they’ll give us back the airwaves. They’re even holding public hearings.

In the meantime, you can take stand to help free the airwaves by checking out the Prometheus Radio Project. With the corporate move to digital, they should consider turning the radio dial over to the people again. Unless they take FM and AM receivers out of cars…