I’ll be taking some time off over the next few days. I’ll rehash an old post a day, just to keep the lights on. From February 11:

After nearly two years of begging him to be furious, I apparently still don’t have Patrick furious enough about the FCC’s slaughter of satellite radio. Like I told him in a recent email, that was my Last, Great Libertarian Cause Célèbre.

But first, some history?

In 1988, and then again in 1990, a few entrepreneurs got together and decided that music lovers would rather pay for good radio than listen to bad radio for free. The public agreed, to a point, but the listener base never grew large enough to pay for their costly marketing skirmish. Both sides adopted an If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em mentality, and in early 2005 rumors of a merger began.

John Ashcroft (yes, that John Ashcroft), fresh from his stint as a historically unpopular Attorney General, seemed to intuit that little would be more lucrative than a protracted lobbying war. Representing his newly-minted lobbying firm, he approached satellite radio first, offering his advocacy for the merger. He knew something then which the rest of us did not: the FCC was absolutely spoiling for a review of this case. Or maybe he was simply trying to prolong his singer-songwriter career:

So come, now. You’re the founder and CEO of the Revolution in Radio. What do you do?

Mr. Ashcroft turned then to the National Association of Broadcasters, who accepted his offer to advocate the opposing viewpoint, i.e. lobby against the merger. The NAB, while representing Big Tone Deaf, isn’t exactly stupid. What was good for satellite radio (the merger, natch) was bad for terrestrial radio. That matrimony forged in Perdition resulted in this letter. Money quote:

The most effective way to keep our markets free from unnecessary government regulations is to promote and ensure that vigorous competition is enhanced and fostered. In making enforcement judgments, the government should always be mindful that the ultimate objective of the antitrust laws is to maximize the value and benefit that enterprises offer to customers.

In other words, “We need more central planning so we can cut back on all this awful central planning.”

(Hey, he wanted to advocate for the merger, but XM and Sirius never returned his phone calls. That letter was going to be much better!)

His replacement and former jefe’s place mat Alberto Gonzales must have appreciated the inverted logic anyway, because the rest is history. Which brings us to Patrick’s post, and to the news today, oh boy!

I submit this with no further comment. Whether Sirius XM Radio lives or dies was never in our hands. We pay our subscription dues annually and try not to complain about service outages. But the FCC had no business reviewing the merger in the first place, took way too much time reviewing, besides, and the terms of the approval were both excessive and arbitrary.