Cramer Continues His Campaign for XM/Sirius Merger (XMSR, SIRI)
On last nights episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer gave viewers of his show several additional reasons why he believes Congress needs go through with the approval of a merger between XM (Nasdaq: XMSR) and Sirius (Nasdaq: SIRI). Cramer told his audience that they should contact their local members of Congress and demand that the merger be approved.
Following Representative Gene Green's (a known opponent to the merger) visit to Mad Money last Friday, Cramer decided to once again put his foot down in regards to the XM/Sirius deal getting done by refuting several points that Green made to Cramer.
First, one of Green's major concerns was that an XM/Sirius combination would raise subscription prices, consequently hurting customers. Responding to this comment, Cramer reiterated his belief that a combined XM/Sirius would offer "a la carte pricing for as little as $6.99/month", meaning consumers would actually being paying less for more options.
Going on, Cramer next turned to Rep. Green's statement that the recently blocked merger between DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) and Echostar (Nasdaq: SATS) appears very similar to the possible XM/Sirius merger. Jim quickly debunked this theory by pointing out that "TV is not the same as radio" in that, while satellite TV often only competes with one cable provider, satellite radio will always compete with standard FM/AM, or terrestrial radio as "there isn't a place where customers can only get satellite radio."
Lastly, Cramer disagreed with Rep. Green believing that individually, XM and Sirius will do fine without a merger. Cramer went against this claim by admitting that he is concerned with XM's balance sheet and believes that satellite radio customers would get a monopoly anyways if XM continues to have problems.
Today, shares of Sirius are up about $0.08, or 2.9%, to $2.88, while XM shares have moved up about $0.26, or 2.3%, to $11.56.
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