Sirius, XM Announce Potential New Packages

I don't think it would be possible for Sirius and XM to merge because they are the two largest satellite-radio companies...if they merged, wouldn't be a monopoly?

Not necessarily. The debate is this:

Are they competing with one another
or
are they competing against other types of media.

I would argue the latter.

I love XM radio, but they lack a good classic rock station.

sure they can merge. satellite radio competes with a lot more than each other. ipod connectors, terrestrial radio, HD radio, etc. That is the competition and since they can't survive on their own, they need to merge. this merger will hopefully get approved otherwise satellite may not survive and that would be a shame as it is a superior product.

Merge or die, simple as that. There just aren't enough satellite radio customers to go around. They need to offer something revolutionary to get the masses on board, commercial free music is no big deal. You can get that by channel surfing. The talk stations suck (except occasionally Howard) and some have commercials. I don't see anything worth paying for. Music on demand might be cool, pick a song juke box style. I might pay for that.

"Merge or die" is the battle cry of many diverse enterprises these days as extreme global competitive pressures force companies to reduce operating costs and overhead through consolidation and economies of scale. I personally don't care what the satllite radio folk do as I refuse to pay anyone a monthly charge when I can get stuff free over the airwaves. I listen to my favorite music on CDs when I travel through areas where only trashy trailer talk programming is available.