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The NAB released an analysis on the “a la carte” pricing plan proposed by Sirius and XM in their attempt to gain approval for their merger and called the proposal a “SHAM”. 

The NAB pulled out their calculators and gave a break-down of the price per channel, the percentage cost increase per channel, and the percentage of few channels for each a the a la carte packages.

Their analysis points out that consumers will be charged higher prices per channel than they currently pay, ranging from 40% to a whopping 188%. In addition the NAB says the proposal will include onerous restrictions and limitations preventing consumers from enjoying true a la carte choice. Furthermore, consumers would be required to buy a new radio to enjoy additional pre-selected channels from both XM and Sirius.

“If ‘a la carte’ is intended to mean more choice and lower prices, XM and Sirius fail the test,” said NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton. “Only in a monopolist’s world are 50-channel minimums, higher prices, interoperability restrictions and a required hardware upgrade considered a consumer benefit. This analysis demonstrates that XM and Sirius are engaged in nothing more than a desperate PR stunt at the expense of consumers.”

Sometimes its quality over quantity and I think this is the advantage of the proposed programming packages.  If the consumer does not like the appeal of the a la carte programming they can still get Everything Sirius or Everything XM for $12.95 per month.

NAB Release

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 1:02 am and is filed under Merger, Satellite Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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