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May 25 2007

Orbitcast catches another one…

Posted at 1:29 pm under Interesting

Yep… Another politician who’s against the XM/Sirius merger and has some kind of vested interest in the outcome of the merger…

Congressman Mike Doyle (R-Pa.), who is also a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, has recently written the FCC and the Justice Department, opposing the Sirius-XM merger.

[...]

Mike Doyle also said that the resulting company would be a monopoly in the satellite radio market, and he complained that the two companies had not produced an interoperable receiver. Statements that seemingly echo the NAB’s stance on the merger.

Now why is that important?

Well, Mike Mullen, Doyle’s former senior legislative assistant is now part of the NAB and is the NAB’s Director of Government Relations now.

Oh yeah, and the NAB puts lots of campaign money in Doyle’s pockets.

I guess that would get you to parrot the talking points, huh?

Other fine upstanding souls:
Mike Hubbard
Herb Kohl

Technorati Tags: xm, sirius, satellite, radio, merger, nab

 

2 Responses to “Orbitcast catches another one…”

  1. Walt Says:
    May 29th, 2007 at 11:46 am

    There is a lot less to Orbitcast’s scoop than meets the eye. And you’re actually closer with “some kind of vested interest” — does Kohl own his own radio franchise? No.

    So what’s the issue? Um, it turns out that Kohl’s Milwaukee Bucks are broadcast on the local AM station, while the NBA has licensed its games to satellite.

    What an unbelievable scandal, huh? Maybe not so much.

    There are a lot of reasons to oppose the merger (don’t forget they originally promised not to merge, when given their licenses) and Senator Kohl is on point. Methinks OrbitCast is just trying to harm his reputation so they don’t have to argue on the merits.

    Relevant disclosure: I’m a consultant for the NAB.

  2. Vinny Says:
    May 29th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    Ummm, no, the issue is that Kohl’s Bucks stand to lose a lot of money in radio advertising revenue if the Bucks were suddenly available to 7 million more Satellite subscribers.

    Oh, and as a consultant for the NAB, I’d be interested to hear what you think about Mike Hubbard who also has a similar conflict of interest (being a legislator with a financial interest in terrestrial radio).

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