It’s funny. I’m not the biggest fan of the XM / Sirius merger due to the fact that I believe they caused XM to suspend Opie and Anthony. That being said, why is it that every politician that comes out against the merger has some financial interest in the merger failing?
As Orbitcast reports, Herb Kohl seems to have a similar conflict of interest to that of Mike Hubbard…
See, Senator Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks – here’s the public disclosure (PDF). Now normally that’s all fine and dandy.
But it turns out that the Milwaukee Bucks have worked out a deal with WTMJ-AM (620) to sell advertising for when their games air.
Previously the Bucks and WTMJ shared that revenue, but with the 2007-2008 season, the Milwaukee Bucks will assume full responsibility for all their broadcast advertising sales.
In short, Senator Kohl directly earns revenue from Bucks broadcasts on WTMJ.
Connect the dots.
Sirius is the exclusive satellite radio broadcaster of the NBA. If XM and Sirius merge, then XM’s 8 million subscribers can have access to these NBA games. And a this could put the amount of revenue that Senator Kohl and his company can generate, at risk.
Conflict of interest? You tell me.
Sounds like one to me.
God bless Orbitcast for digging up this kind of stuff. It really does shine quite a light on the kind of practices terrestrial is using to block the merger, ethics be damned. What I don’t get is why isn’t the mainstream media pursuing these angles like Orbitcast, and others are? Often, these stories get barely a passing mention…
Oh wait. I take that back.
I know exactly why they aren’t pursuing it.
