FCC Approves Sirius, XM Merger

Federal regulators have approved a proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio Holdings, a $3.3 billion deal, Bloomberg News reported Monday.

Officials with the Federal Communications Commission on Friday voted three-to-two in favor of the merger, Bloomberg said.

As a condition of FCC approval, Sirius and XM agreed to freeze subscription prices for three years, sell smaller programming packages, and allocate 8% of their channels to educational and minority broadcasters, Bloomberg reported.

The combined Sirius/XM network will have about 18.6 million subscribers, Bloomberg said.

The proposed merger of the only two pay-radio networks in the U.S. was announced more than a year ago. Traditional radio broadcasters opposed the merger and said that the combination would create a monopoly, Bloomberg reported.