XM Radio, the number one satellite radio provider (out of a possible two) has recently passed 6.5 million subscribers, and chose to mark the occasion by reminding us that they are headed for 9 million at the end of the year. XM also revealed that their customer acquisition costs have gone down. The market responded with XM's share price rising 1.3% to $22.55, but it's still down 17% this year, according to Reuters. The Motley Fool (via MSNBC) rightly says that this announcement obviously is coming on the heels of Sirius' announcement 2 weeks ago that they had surpassed 4 million subs, and were poised to have 6 million by the end of the year. That's... hm, let's see... carry the 1... 17... er, 15 million subscribers for the year. Can't you smell the vertical integration? Can't you see one of those ripe baskets of $13-a-month subscribers gobbled up by some larger media company looking to get more ad inventory?

[via FMQB]