Here is an excerpt of some testimony before the U.S. Senate by Gigi B. Sohn pleading for there not to be any local programming restrictions for Sirius/XM...
"Two other points warrant mention here. The first is our strong opposition to any merger condition involving limitations on the ability of consumers to record these satellite radio services. Such a condition would be tantamount to repealing the Audio Home Recording Act, which specifically protects a consumer’s ability to record digital music.
The second is to urge Congress and the FCC to permit satellite radio broadcasters to do more, and not less, local programming. Broadcasters’ opposition to this merger and to satellite radio’s provision of local traffic, weather and emergency information is not only incredibly hypocritical given their own current regulatory efforts to consolidate, but is anticompetitive in its own right. Even assuming that broadcasters take seriously their statutory duty to serve local communities with programming that serves their needs (and not just traffic and weather), there is no reason why, in 2007, any media service should have a government-granted monopoly over local programming."
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/870