Satellite Radio Giants to Merge

Posted on February 19, 2007

The Chicago Tribune is reporting on the merger between the two satellite radio giants: XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.

Radio's space race has ended.
The two warring satellite subscription services, XM Satellite Radio and No. 2 Sirius Satellite Radio, announced Monday they are joining forces to form a tax-free, all-stock merger of equals with a combined enterprise value of around $13 billion, including net debt of roughly $1.6 billion.
For consumers, who have had to choose one service and its exclusive talk, sports, music and news programming, the merger brings together Sirius' Howard Stern and XM's Oprah Winfrey and Sirius' National Football League broadcasts and XM's Major League Baseball.

Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin will be the new CEO and Gary Parsons, the CEO of XM Satellite Radio will be chairman of the board of the new company. It doesn't sound like they picked a name yet. The news that a merger was closed was announced in a New York Post article earlier today. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a 13 billion dollar merger.