Competing Satellite Radio providers XM and Sirius have announced an intent to merge. But the deal is far from done. The legal obstacle course involved in turning back a 1997 FCC decision is no small matter. But who is opposed to a merger between XM and Sirius?

Possibly, anyone who has spent money on either one of the systems and likes things just as they are. A merger almost certainly means price hikes for the service. Since neither company has yet to prove profitable, they’ll need to start making it somehow. Of course the beneficiaries of the hefty contracts both companies have been handing out also stand to lose. A merger will remove the impetus for big spending. The only reason they’ll pay millions for a past -its-prime talk show personality or other ungodly sums for the broadcast rights to a sports league is to prevent the other from getting it first.

Of course, there are other opponents who clearly only want to kick satellite radio when it’s down. National Association of Broadcasters put out this public statement about the proposed merger. NAB’s opposition is on the shaky grounds that FCC permission to merge amounts to a “government bailout”. Indeed I can also hear the “rattle of stones against the NAB’s glass house".