What does the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger mean for XM customers? Well, according to one customer service rep, it means mean prices are going to roughly double in May. Here’s what she said to one of our tipsters:
This is strictly confidential, but all the paperwork is signed and ready to go, and XM has fully acquired Sirius Radio. Come May, there will be a substantial price increase for XM Radio, as it will, in June or so, host all the Sirius channels. It would be best to simply extend your XM plan as we will honor your current contract price per month before we begin hosting the Sirius stations.
The tipster said he believed she said the price was going to double. Perhaps the customer service rep just wanted to score a renewal, but if true, it would certainly at least be ironic considering when the DOJ approved the deal was they said, “the evidence did not show that the merger would enable the parties to profitably increase prices to satellite radio customers.” However, reader comments on this post and this post over at Orbitcast say this customer service rep is full of pure baloney.
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Without piling on the OP/fact checking, what I want to know is what happens to existing Sirius Lifetime subscribers — I signed on for the lifetime deal due to getting a Sirius receiver with my new VW which I plan to keep past the 3-year breakin period. I am guessing it’ll just stay the same with the same channel lineup, which is fine as most of my in-car radio use is for NPR and occasional music channels — Sirius has that. Sports and shock jocks aren’t my interest.
if the rep really said that, he/she is sadly mistaken. There will be no increase and in fact post-merger if people wanted to leave their programming exactly as it is, it would be done at the same rate they’ve been paying.
What’s this about a $77/year deal? Any details on that?
Bababooey! Bababooey! Bababooey!
@Buran: Normally lifetime subscribers can change the receiver up to three times for a fee, but I’m hoping Sirius will be smart enough to waive the fee for those who will be forced to upgrade to get the latest.
Personally I’m hoping that the Stiletto can be updated with a firmware upgrade to get both Sirius and XM, but it’s not likely, so it will become a rather nice MP3 player.
As soon as I read that XM is acquiring Sirius it was clear this story is horseshit. Nice try.
This is horsehit for all the reasons pointed out above. Just wanted to concur.
But as a longtime XM guy, I’m looking forward to listening to Stern again so I can get updates on lesbians and enemas, plus hear him curse. That’s great radio!
“but if true, it would certainly at least be ironic considering when the DOJ approved the deal was they said, “the evidence did not show that the merger would enable the parties to profitably increase prices to satellite radio customers.”"
We are living in an age of irony.
Why even post this junk? It smells terribly like a feeble attempt to sock the readers of this blog. I love this site, but that headline is junk.
What a load.
Sirius is getting XM, not the other way around.
There are no dual service radios produced as of this time so you cannot receive both services on one radio so you cannot subscribe to both services at the same time.
The merger still has not been completely approved by the feds therefore no paperwork can be signed and no merger can be completed. So XM did not fully merge with sirius.
There is no way the merger will be approved before the end of the year, let alone in a month or two.
The Consumerist really should have confirmed this story before putting it up. There is ample publicly available info that could have easily disproved this story as an early April Fools joke.
A vary bad April Fools joke at that.
@DojiStar:
Agree except on this point “There is no way the merger will be approved before the end of the year, let alone in a month or two.”
Merger approval will be done within two months, max. They have DOJ approval, just need FCC.
you people have not followed up with the whole merger. If they were to double the price they would be creating a monopoly and the FCC would never approve of this. So to this guy go find some credible information
Considering Sirius is buying XM (rep said xm is buying sirius) this rep is clueless on every level. They already said prices will not go up and in fact will probably go DOWN.
This post is totally wrong and should be removed immediately.
[siriusxmnews.com]
[fjallfoss.fcc.gov]
Hopefully the Consumerist staff “takes it seriously” and issues a correction. Bad information is worse than no information.
Well, it looks like they have issued not a correction, but a replacement for what they had written earlier. The honest thing to do would be to still have the “No wonder the economy is in trouble, our own government doesn’t even understand how basic competition works. ” language up there. You know, like they make the posters do with the lack of an edit button.
Delete this post. It is blatantly false and the worst kind of rumor mongering. At the very least change the title.
Shame, Consumerist, Shame. Horrible reporting.
The DOJ isn’t going to approve a merger request in which the main issue is “Is it going to create a monopoly?” and then the merged company immediately doubles it’s prices. This story is bogus crap and should be removed immediately.
$10 says the tipster belongs to the National Association of Radio Broadcasting, or whatever Clear Channel front that is trying to stop the merger because people are getting tired of the commercials and crap music on “terrestrial radio”
If the prices come down, maybe they can boost their subscriber base. The prices now are completely absurd. Maybe they should pay gazillions to Stern and the others…
Totally BS here is the real pricing plan post merger [fjallfoss.fcc.gov]
sirius is aquiring XM so the basic facts of the story are wrong.
If they double prices, nobody will subscribe. At 12.95 a month for radio, they are pushing it anyway. Especially with the prices of basic foods and gas skyrocketing.
Ben, your credibility is shrinking by the day. You don’t even show the smallest bit of skepticism, even when the basic premise of the posting (the wrong company doing the acquiring) is wrong?
Listen to your comments: They’re trying to tell you something. But it’s not clear you’re listening — kind of like all the companies you complain about.
Maybe I’m wrong — perhaps you are “taking it seriously.”
I have to agree that consumerisy in general has gotten pretty sloppy. A site devoted to accountability that posts a false article, provokes a fairly unanimous rebuke form loyal commenters, and continues to ignore them? If it were a company I would assume the CEO was busy shopping for another job when the compant is kind of ignoring its own mission/standards.
Read the last sentence on the post before making another comment. It’s been up for hours.
@Ben Popken:
Ben, tossing that sentence in there doesn’t really help, since it won’t be clear to later readers why the earlier posters were so negative on the story. In this case, you really should say (in bold) UPDATE: XYZ isn’t actually true blah blah blah.
If you’re going to change a post, you should show how its been changed, just as a newspaper’s online edition will archive the original version with the correction at the bottom, rather than fixing the article and never indicating that a mistake was made.
@notallcompaniesareevil:
Agreed – Ben, correct, don’t delete.
@Ben Popken: Ben, people have read that, and instead of satisfying, it’s actually antagonizing. It’s not honest to just change the text of the post without acknowledging that a mistake was made. Check out Boing Boing for a good example of the right way to handle things like this. They get stuff wrong (like all humans, including those that work at companies), but when they find a mistake, they cross out the offending text and say UPDATE: [ ]. Please do that here. No one will think less of you for having screwed up if you are honest with the mistake (see the post on Netflix vs. all the posts on Best Buy, et al.). If you continue to act like you know better than the rest of the world, including those who take time out of their day to listen to what you have to say, it will only come back to bite you.
I hope the parallels with the companies you cover are not lost.
Wow. Now the Consumerist is posting rumours. Nice. When I first started coming to this site, it had real consumers with real issues…as of late, it seems to have digressed to just start posting more and more worthless articles. A rumour from a CSR is pretty much worthless. Do you realize how far down on the food chain a CSR is? I am not trying to degrade their position as I have been a CSR myself in the past but this sounds like an attempt to upsell now if this is in fact a real quote at all or just a fabricated rumour that you happened to pick up.
Even the theory alone of doubling the price makes very little sense if you think about it. But hey, who am I to say but I heard from this guy who is dating a girl who’s neighbor’s cousin ate at a Wendy’s with a person who heard that if you eat pop rocks and drink a coke real fast you will explode!!!! BEWARE!!!
When did the Consumerist become a rumormongering site?