Satellite radio merger boon for archdiocese
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- March
- 25
The news that the Justice Department has approved SIRIUS Satellite Radio’s buyout of XM Satellite Radio must have been received with cheers by the Archdiocese of New York.
Why? The archdiocese produces the Catholic Channel on SIRIUS, which will likely get a bigger audience when the merger goes though.
The non-satellite radio world argued against the merger, but Justice decided that having one big satellite radio ship will not hurt consumers by affecting competition. There is no real competition now, Justice said, because consumers buy equipment for one service or the other and rarely switch.
There’s also plenty of competition in the overall radio world, the government said.
So the Catholic Channel will have the opportunity to flourish. It’s promising 24-hour coverage of the papal visit to the U.S.
The archdiocese agreed to plan and provide programming for the channel after it was approached by SIRIUS officials. Cardinal Egan has a show and listeners get to hear him celebrate Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Joe Zwilling, the oft-quoted spokesman for the archdiocese and for Egan, is also general manager of the Catholic Channel.
XM has 9 million subscribers and SIRIUS 8.3 million.
When I profiled the Catholic Channel last year, it was explained to me that there was no way to measure the audience for an individual channel on satellite radio.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 9:44 am by Gary Stern.
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The world of religion, we don't have to tell you, is vast. The purpose of this blog is for Stern to note, flag and comment on some of the more interesting religious developments on the scene – weighty and quirky, somber and laughable, far away and just down the road. He won't interpret Scripture, take sides in conflicts or judge anyone. But he will take advantage of the journalist's license to observe.
