I don’t understand why this merger has come down to essentially a party line vote. The Democratic commissioners at the FCC are forgetting what satellite radio has done for left leaning viewpoints.
Last week, Democratic commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said he would vote for the deal if the companies agree to extend their price cap to six years and set aside more channels for educational and minority-owned stations.
However, the companies rejected that overture and on Wednesday, Mr. Adelstein voted against the deal, saying he had hoped for a “bipartisan solution” but that the agency’s Republican commissioners, who all voted for the deal, appeared more interested in approving “a monopoly with window dressing” for conditions.
FCC Commissioners Set To Approve XM-Sirius Deal – WSJ.com
Let us remember the current state of commercial talk radio. It is dominated by white conservative males for the most part. Do we hear a lot of minority, GLBT, or liberal viewpoints? Hardly. Big media corporations are leery of taking a chance on things like that.
So, what has happened as a result is we now have the likes of Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity dominating the talk radio circuit. Essentially, thats what most people are hearing these days.
Liberals have been shut out. However, satellite radio has given liberal talk a chance. Take example Air America Radio: without XM the network would have limited coverage in big cities. Instead, it now has national coverage.
Female viewpoints are heard loud and clear through female-centric channels on both services. XM has a show from the Human Rights Campaign on GLBT issues — Sirius has an entire channel. Minorities are represented well on both services — I can count about a half-dozen on each service AT LEAST that target these audiences.
Adelstein’s excuse to not vote for this was a copout. If anything, this merger will help diversify viewpoints than silence them. It’s a shame this merger had to turn into a partisan issue.
