This week marked the anniversary of the announcement that the satellite radio firms Sirius and XM plan to merge, yet so far the companies have not been allowed to consummate the marriage. That’s because regulators are standing in the way, backed by well-heeled Washington lobbyists out to prove that ridiculous ideas still have an impact if they come with dollar-sign attachments.
For instance, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has spent more than US$4 million lobbying to convince regulators that the XM-Sirius deal would create a radio monopoly. That’s like arguing that the Kindle, Amazon’s new wireless reading device, is a monopoly because it is the only e-book reading device that can download books using EVDO (evolution-data optimized) technology so the user can read them immediately. Yet neither new way of enjoying books or radio excludes all others.
NAB’s claims don’t hold up to scrutiny, especially when they try to have it both ways. As the Pacific Research Institute’s Daniel Ballon has pointed out, “the NAB concocted an absurd notion of competition” with its statement that “Sirius and XM compete directly with us, but we don’t compete directly with them.” George Orwell savaged that kind of logic in his novels, and it does not belong in the debate halls of the most powerful nation in the world.
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