Now that the Satellite Radio Merger has gone thru.....

[Agent]

I'm miffed at the merger. Before it went through I understood they were going to have a pricing scheme where you could pay-per-channel. I haven't heard anything like that post merger.

But what I find most strange is now that they are the same company, in order to get the other service's channels you have to order a "best of XM" or "best of Sirius" package for an extra $4 a month and it's only available in the continental US. Never once did I hear Howard Stern mention this when he went on his rants about the merger's resistance in government. I understood they would blend the two services together...Not that we'd have to pay more for the other service's channels.

It just doesn't make sense to me as a consumer. If anything, I figured they would slowly integrate into one service and broadcast over each others hardware. Instead we have to pay extra to have "hockey, football, and baseball" on the same receiver (as was a popular argument pre-merger.) Just no one said you'd effectively be paying for extras and not a combined service post-merger.