Sirius and XM combined have spent $25 million on developing an interoperable radio.
Karmazin reiterated for the committee what he told the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Anti-Merger Task Force last week, that if there was any manufacturer that wanted to make the $700 radio “we could do it.” “The issue is, we don’t want to subsidize it” as two separate companies. Karmazin said, however, that if the merger were approved, “We are prepared to subsidize that radio.”
Of that comment, Greater Media President/CEO Peter Smyth, testifying for NAB, said: “If you said 10 years ago that you were going to build an interoperable radio don’t say today that you can’t deliver.”
