Sirius expects to close its merger with XM within 24 hours of rec...

approval on a Monday, the assumption is that we would close on a Tuesday. We continue to expect the merger will close before the end of the year,” he said. Receiving regulatory approval by the end of the year would mean that the FCC’s informal internal six- month review clock will not be paused. Wednesday is Day 145, according to the FCC’s website. “Virtually all of the opposition to the merger has been generated either directly or indirectly by those who fear competition,” Karmazin said without specifically naming NAB, which has been the most vocal critic of the proposed merger. Sirius is holding its shareholder meeting to approve the merger Nov. 13 and Karmazin urged investors to vote. “If you do not vote, it will be counted as a no vote,” he said. Once the merger is approved and consummated, Karmazin thinks integration will be easy, he said. “I have a great deal of experience of integrating companies. I merged Infinity into CBS and CBS into Viacom,” he said. “I don’t think it will be overly complicated.” Sirius still expects to reach the 8 million subscriber mark by the end of the year after adding 525,000 new subscribers in the third quarter, Karmazin said. This result beat analyst expectations, said a call participant. More than 460,000 of those subscribers were among purchasers of new cars with Sirius installed, he said. Even with the gains satellite radio has made, it still only penetrates 15 percent of the homes in America, he said. Sirius’s churn was the same as last quarter, he said. Revenue was up 45 percent, said David Frear, executive vice president and chief financial officer. It was able to reduce its customer service and billing expenses by 17 percent from the same period last year, he said. The 95 cents per subscriber is a new low for Sirius, he added.