Merger finally approved

Meh. With my built in radio in my car, I won't be able to hear Sirius without purchasing a new unit. I'll stick with XM for my remaining subscription.

As I've said before, the merger will do NOTHING to help existing subscribers. We only stand to lose channels that are "redundant." Anything worthwhile on the other service will cost an arm and a leg "ala carte."

Only new subscribers (and stockholders) stand to gain. Screw existing customers.

Pat6366 and i will now live in peace and harmony

As a dual subscriber (4 subs to Sirius and XM came free for 3 yrs on our QX56), I'm stoked that this finally went through and I'm looking forward to what happens from here. I'm actually surprised that Sirius/XM have not even made a simple announcement acknowledging that approval.

I don't think that's true. Both services will overlap their most-listened to stations. For example, Howard Stern will quickly be made available to existing XM subs, and whatever XM has that's good should be made available to Sirius subs.

The only overlap will be removing the redundant management and station programming - they only need one group now to program the 70's channels, not two.

I read that there will be about 10 unique stations that will be shared across both services (Stern being one of them).

But in the case of Stern, for example - if you have XM and you want him? It's extra.

Has there been any talk of making XM channels available to Sirius Internet Radio? That would make them available to the Stilletto, as well as to the Internet streams.

That's not fun.

That hasn't been decided yet. And it would be dumb, but that doesn't mean they won't do it.

I'm guessing that's to offset the massive subscriber consolidation for those folks that have both services and want to eliminate one of them.

I know I am not ripping out my integrated NAV/SAT radio system in my new 2008 car to be able to listen to XM stuff.
If they don't find way to broadcast on legacy equipment the merger cost them a subscriber, they didn't gain one.
I don't even care about XM except for maybe Ron and Fez and Bob Dylan's Radio Hour so if they just keep Sirius the way it is on my hardware, I may resub.
Otherwise, it's back to regular, better sounding terrestial radio and getting my Howard fix through other "channels".

I think one of the major savings will be with renegotiating contracts with NFL, NASCAR, etc. They no longer have competition with each other to "one-up" the other trying to get new programming. That should save them a lot of dollars.

One casualty of the merger is no more punk channel on Sirius. It's been replaced with AC/DC radio. Not quite the same.

AC/DC is limited time offering and not a permanent channel.

so for a few months they will take away a channel you listen to and there is nothing u can do about it-cancel and go to pandora my freinds-they have a punk channel that u can control what is played!!!

I was all in favor of the merger, but What a joke. I logged on to the Sirius web site and saw that there were 10- channels of XM available in another package. I have the $142/year plan, and they said it would be $184/year to have what I have now plus the 10 XM channels.

$42.00 more for only 10 channels????? BS

After complaining they said, quote "But it's the BEST 10 channels from XM."

To which I responded "The best 10 according to who? " "They are not my choices." Oprah???? Gimme a break. But now I understand, I'm sure she gets paid tons of $$$ and we'll just pay her salary.

Then when I signed up last year, I was told that if they merged, I would be able to get all the channels with my Sportster, but now they say, "No, you need a Stiletto"

I have to say that after this, I see all they wanted was to monopolize the market, otherwise they would (and could) do MUCH better than that.

SiriusXM stock price is now about $.60 a share. Thats SIXTY CENTS!! So you may not have to worry about these packages and best of's much longer.

I know a companies stock price isn't always a good gauge on how a company is doing. But $1.30 at the time of the merger to $.60 now isn't a good sign no matter how we look at it.

Ouch, not good!

They better come up with some better packages and quick. And maybe stop paying 100 million/year to Stern and whatever they pay Oprah.

Maybe then they could add tons of channels and offer a better price. If they keep up with this outrageous pricing, someone else will have to buy them out, maybe a satellite tv provider or something.

It's funny how Howard got on his soap box to tell everyone how this merger will benefit everyone.

What does it do for me, an existing Sirius subscriber? Nothing. If I had a vote, I would have voted against it.
Here is what I expected: Take all the channels of both companies, and consolidate into one package.
They forgot that A la Carte doesn't benefit anyone unless it is cheaper. They want me to pick a # of stations, with sports and Howard and it still costs the same?
Way to run the company into the ground guys.

Eventually they ARE going to combine the channels from both companies. BUT they can't do that until they release an all in one unit that will pick up the signal from both companies satellites.

Right now this 'best of XM and Sirius channels' is just a stop gap fix.

Once they have a true ala carte 'some' of the packages will be cheaper then what we are paying now.

And if you were in his Position you would have done the same thing!!!!!