BY DANIEL MCSWAIN
In the immediate aftermath of a merger announcement from satellite radio companies XM Radio and Sirius, various pundits and analysts have scrambled to survey the increasing competition that the new unified company is likely to face.

Indeed, most reports point out that the deal will position the new company against a growing host of technologies and innovations that should worry satellite radio operators as the merger moves forward.

Marc Fisher at the Washington Post says that "now that we are hurtling toward the day when some form of wireless internet will be available to drivers on a consistent enough basis to allow for cars to be equipped with web radio receivers, it's not entirely clear that satellite will be more than an interim technology."

Competition from wireless delivery tech has been a popular argument in the wake of the announcement. Steve Poland, writing at TechCrunch in a post called "XM and Sirius Finally Merging; Will it Matter for Long?", says that "as Wi-Fi starts to heat up (and eventually lace the country), that will open up access to Internet radio stations to broadcast to a much larger audience. The satellite monopoly won’t matter at that point..."

Poland continues, writing that "...Internet radio stations being broadcasted to vehicles via broadband cell providers will help those stations with profitability — and think of the kick that it could give Google’s radio / audio advertising initiatives."

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Speculation that the deal could be a launching pad for new services and initiatives from a combined company has also surfaced. Jay Baage, writing at the Digital Media Wire, says that the announcement "resurrects the possibility of iPod integration with satellite radio." Baage says that a combined service would make a leaner and more attractive programming package, something that was missing in the eyes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he met with Sirius head Mel Karmazin in 2005 to discuss the possibility of a partnership.

Baage goes on to note that a satellite radio integration deal might not be the top prize for Apple, whose "first choice might be to integrate Wi-Fi capacity to its iPods."

Radio analyst Mark Ramsey, writing at his Hear 2.0 blog, lists a number of "knee-jerk" reactions to the deal. Among them, Ramsey predicts that the merger will make HD Radio "a harder sell than ever before. Even harder than it is already."

Ramsey does predict that the deal will help the new satellite radio company muscle its way into more and more new automobiles, claiming that cars will be " the primary distribution thrust for the new company from this point forward."



Still, the above chart from RBR shows the uphill battle a new company would face against competitors of all stripes — from an iPod market nearly three times the size of all satellite radio subscribers, to a mass of mobile and cellular device subscribers that could very soon be linked directly into streaming radio.

As TechCrunch's Poland argues: "Right now with Sprint and Verizon Broadband mobile services, if a hardware device existed, you could plug your wireless broadband card into your car stereo and connect to your favorite Internet radio stations and podcasts. Aside from the Howard Stern fans — who will need XM / Sirius at that point?"

From The Onion's "American Voices" feature

	Kendra Peters, Furnace Repairperson: "Cool. I didn't think I was paying enough for my service before."
	Krzysch, Systems Analyst: "I'm just worried that Sirius' Top 40 station will be dropped in favor of XM's vastly inferior Top 40."
	Josh Bernstein, Piano Tuner: "Until there's a satellite channel dedicated to a lonely statistician in Tacoma talking about his figurine collection, I'm sticking with ham radio."

Read this "American Voices" in The Onion online here.