Liberty Media, which currently owns 48% of SiriusXM, has filed with the FCC that it plans on taking that stake over the 50% threshold needed to assume control of the company.
In the filing Liberty stated that “it will have purchased sufficient shares of SiriusXM common stock and will convert its preferred shares such that the transfer of control will be completed within 60 days of commission consent.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that such a move will give Liberty the ability to replace SiriusXM management and merge the company into its own. Among the media properties under Liberty Media’s umbrella are DirecTV, the Encore & Starz premium cable networks, QVC, regional cable sports networks under the “Root” brand in Denver, Pittsburgh, and Seattle and the Atlanta Braves. Liberty announced last week plans to spinoff Starz, partially in order to fund its takeover of SiriusXM.
MattParker 
johndavis
Liberty=John Malone. Sounds like John v Mel. Question is what does John want to do differently with SiriusXM? Replace Music Choice with SiriusXM on DirecTV? So what? Stop over paying for Howard Stern and other marquee names? They have not paid their way in drawing subscribers but they are about the only draw SiriusXM has. Their competition is no longer terrestrial radio – it’s Internet radio. Not one or two dozen local stations versus a hundred channels (and no FCC) it’s a hundred channels versus tens of thousands of streams, podcasts and on-demand. SiriusXM is where AOL was 12 years ago. Like AOL, maybe SiriusXM needs to reinvent itself as an audio content provider for the Internet and forget about satellites and blanket subscriptions.
There probably isn’t much Malone would do differently with SiriusXM, and with Mel softening his stance on not working for anyone else again, my hunch is they’ll leave Mel alone as long as he makes money.