This is becoming a weekly occurrence.

The latest complaint about the Sirius Xm Merger comes from a company called GEORGETOWN PARTNERS.
This is the company that wants 20% of the Satellite Radio infrastructure handed over to them.

In the PDF GEORGETOWN PARTNERS calls the Sirius XM ‘A La Carte’ option a “Fairytale”:

A review of thefiling exposes the Sirius-XM so-called “A La Carte” proposal to be nothing more than a“fairytale” with the potential to in fact have a disturbingly unhappy ending for the public.

They go on to say:

I. THE TYPE OF “A LA CARTE” PUT FORTH BY SIRIUS AND XM IS AFAIRYTALE WITH NO PUBLIC INTEREST BENEFITGeorgetown Partners LLC (“Georgetown”) recognizes and agrees that a la carteofferings benefit consumers in that consumers may select and purchase programming oftheir choice as opposed to being required to buy entire packages of programming thatmay include unwanted channels. The Sirius-XM January 22 FCC filing gives theimpression that they have an a la carte offering that will be available to owners of Siriusand XM receivers if the FCC approves its proposed merger. In an attempt to further“spin” this deception, Sirius-XM state that their alleged “A La Carte” offerings includetwo different choices in pricing, “A La Carte I” and “A La Carte II”, to create theimpression that the offerings are available now and that they will be rolled out in shortorder. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sirius-XM know full well that the “A LaCarte” offerings they describe will only be available on so-called “next generation”1satellite radios that do not exist and for which there are no production plans. The Sirius-XM “A La Carte” offerings are a “fairytale.” There are no public interest benefits in thenear or even in the intermediate future.Unfortunately, this “fairytale” does not have a happy ending. Even assuming thatsometime in the distant future these radios were actually to be produced and could bepurchased, the more than 30 million present owners of installed automobile satellite radioreceivers and the tens of million of future car owners of such radios would have to ripthese radios out of their dash boards, junk them, and pay whatever monopoly price thepost-merger company would charge for the “next generation” radios.Furthermore, Sirius-XM have made no guarantee that “A La Carte,” whenever it
might become available, will be a permanent option for consumers. Furthermore, even
though the companies have put proposed pricing structures in their earlier filings, they
offer no guarantees on pricing, on how long these packages will be available, or on what
content these packages will include. In fact, no guarantees of any kind are made. Perhaps
Sirius-XM feel they do not need to make guarantees because after the merger they
basically will be free from any ongoing regulatory oversight.
Rather than focusing on obvious attempts to put one over on the FCC and the
American consumer by “marketing” through its filing an illusory “A La Carte” offering,
Sirius-XM should withdraw this misleading and disingenuous January 22 filing and
submit a filing with a real a la carte offering that benefits the consumer.

I really don’t feel like quoting the rest of the Complaint so you can read it at the link below.

When are people going to just give up and let this merger happen? How long is the FCC going to let this drag on for?
Maybe we will see the merger by 2009…..but by then one of these companies will probably be Bankrupt.

More Merger news later.

Link to PDF:

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6519838087

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