Farmer Group Backs XM-Sirius Merger

Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund Supports Black-Owned Family Farms in the South

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/21/2007 11:29:00 AM

The latest group to weigh in on the XM Satellite Radio-Sirius Satellite Radio merger is a group that helps out black-owned family farms in the south.

Why the interest in a satellite-radio merger?

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund said rural communities are "underserved" by terrestrial radio and argued that the merger will provide "lower prices and increased programming choice" to its 20,000 member families in 12 states.

XM and Sirius have offered to provide a la carte programming -- although it would require the purchase of new equipment -- to boost their minority-targeted offerings and to cap prices on their service, all with an eye toward gaining regulatory approval for the deal.

This has attracted a number of minority and rural groups who say terrestrial radio is not sufficiently diverse.

But that approval faces some big hurdles, including opposition by major lawmakers and an earlier FCC pronouncement that both satellite licenses should not be held by one company.

Talkback

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I only reason I believe these Black organizations are supporting the XM-Sirius merger is that they're getting donations from XM-Sirius. Broadcast deregulation has been a disaster for Black owned broadcasters, particularly small rural Black owned broadcasters. Before the media consolidation of the late 90's, there were hundreds of small Black radio station owners around the country, today only a few African Americans own stations; Radio One's Kathy Hughes and Percy Sutton's Inner City Broadcasting owns half of the nation's 200 Black owned radio stations. Few of those 200 stations or for that matter few other Black owned stations program any significant amount of news or public affairs, and the XM-Sirius merger would do nothing to remedy that situation since satellite radio is not supposed to air local broadcasts.

Robert Jackson - 8/27/2007 9:14:00 AM EDT

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