WASHINGTON -- December 26, 2007: Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) has written to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras to express his concern over the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.
If the companies are allowed to merge, Broun wrote, "the elimination of competition would hurt my constituents who are consumers of satellite radio."
Broun said the FCC "demonstrated sound reasoning" when it said before granting the satellite radio licenses to XM and Sirius that one licensee would not be allowed to acquire the other.
"The FCC has never before allowed the only two competitors in a market to combine," Broun wrote. "Present circumstances do not warrant the FCC's complete reversal of its conclusions in the satellite radio licensing decision."
Broun urges Martin, Mukasey, and Majoras to "maintain the market competition that is analogous to the competition in the satellite television arena."
