New Sirius will air in Puerto Rico.

According to Radio and Records, the merged XM-Sirius must file necessary applications with the FCC to provide satellite radio service to Puerto Rico using terrestrial repeaters within three months of the merger’s consummation, notes the FCC in papers detailing the merger released late Monday afternoon (July 28). While both Sirius and XM have separately programmed, operated and regulated companies doing their work in Canada, the satellite signals beamed from Sirius’ Manhattan studios and XM’s massive Washington, D.C., complex have not been sold outside the continental United States.

Sirius operates three geosynchronous birds, with one each floating over the eastern and western United States and a third floating above the Caribbean Ocean in eight-hour shifts. XM has two more powerful, stationary satellites fixed over the country. Neither company says it has a bird that can eyeball the Earth, but XM has acknowledged in the past that its spectrum does contain space that is used to transmit business information separate of music and talk entertainment programming.

In permitting the merger, the FCC also prohibits the merged entity from entering into agreements that would bar any terrestrial radio station from broadcasting local sporting events live. The commission protects terrestrial radio with yet another reiteration of the satellite companies’ original licenses, which prohibit the satcasters, independent of the merger, from “using terrestrial repeaters to distribute local content — including both programming and advertising — that is distinct from that provided to subscribers nationwide via satellite.”

The three-year price freeze on satellite radio’s monthly billing prices was a huge part of getting the government and consumer groups to embrace the deal, and the FCC has taken it a step further, adding the possibility that the price cap could be extended. “In addition [to the cap] six months prior to the end of the commitment period, the Commission will seek public comment on whether the cap continues to be necessary in the public interest and will determine whether it should be extended, removed or modified,” notes the detailed recap of the FCC’s merger order. “The merger approval is conditioned on the Commission’s ability to modify or extend the price cap beyond the three-year commitment period.” However, after the first anniversary of the consummation of the merger, the combined company may pass through to the subscriber cost increases incurred since the filing of the merger.

Within four months of the consummation of the merger, the new company “agrees to enter into long-term leases or other agreements to provide a qualified entity or entities rights to 4% of the full-time audio channels” on each of the Sirius and XM platforms, in order to provide six channels each for noncommercial educational use. That programming must be available within six months of the merger being signed.

Courtesy of Radio and Records magazine http://www.radioandrecords.com