The FCC should reject the satellite merger; but if it doesn’t, it should force Sirius/XM to lease its broadcast infrastructure and at least 20% of its channel capacity to a minority-controlled entity. That’s the comment from a private equity firm, Georgetown Partners LLC, which also would like to be that minority entity.
The organization also noted what it described as “various disingenuous statements and inaccuracies” in the Sirius-XM filing, including “Sirius/XM’s misrepresentations of the current record of support for and opposition to their proposed merger, and Sirius/XM’s failure to address the fact that not a single third-party entity that is on record with the FCC opposes Georgetown’s proposed solution to the fundamental flaws in Sirius/XM’s proposed merger, as currently structured.”
The firm noted what it calls a risk to family-oriented programming “in light of Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin’s long track record of promoting programming considered by the FCC to be indecent and his championing of Howard Stern.”
Georgetown would like to be the one that leases and operates some of the broadcasting infrastructure and satellite channels, and said all of its programming would comply with the FCC’s broadcast indecency rules “even though such rules do not apply to satellite broadcasting.”
