Below The Beltway

It looks like a last minute loan from the owner of DirecTv has prevented what seemed to be an inevitable Chapter 11 filing:
Liberty Media has agreed to loan Sirius XM Radio $530 million to help save the satellite radio provider from bankruptcy.
Liberty Media, which owns DirecTV, and Sirius said in a news release that the [...]

It’s looking like the merger didn’t solve all the problems in the satellite radio business:
Sirius XM Satellite Radio has been working with advisers to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing in a move that could put pressure on the satellite company EchoStar, which owns a substantial amount of the company’s debt.
Sirius has been working with [...]

After 18 months, the FCC has finally approved the XM/Sirius merger:
The government has approved the long-delayed merger of the nation’s only satellite radio companies, combining Sirius and XM into a single entity with 18 million subscribers.
The decision last night came almost a year and a half after the companies first proposed joining. Based on yesterday’s [...]

The Department of Justice has given the okay to the long-pending planned merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. Justice Department approved the merger between satellite radio companies Sirius and XM Monday, more than a year after the two companies first announced their deal.
In its decision, the Department [...]

While the bureaucrats at the FCC and FTC, not to mention Congress, have yet to rule on the issue, the shareholders of both XM Satellite Radio and competitor Sirius have approved the merger that was announced earlier this year:
NEW YORK — Shareholders approved a deal Tuesday to allow Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. to acquire its [...]

As the XM-Sirius merger slogs it’s way through the regulatory process, the Washington Post reports that satellite radio is facing competition from a new source:
When Hyundai introduces its still-unnamed premium sports sedan for 2008, it will arrive with a built-in feature that most other new cars won’t have: high-definition radio.
Over the past few months, high-definition [...]