Sirius and XM combined will likely provide more services to customers, who will no longer have to worry if they've made the right choice between buying Sirius hardware and XM hardware. But the cost of service will go up, and I wouldn't be surprised if your monthly bill hits $20. At the same time, every car built from 2010 on will have a satellite decoder standard in the car's radio. That's my take on the effects of the merger: more choices, and more costs.

Since I wrote about the possible merger last month (Sirius-XM Merger: A Q&A), the two companies agreed to a stock deal that would effectively merge them. But they have to obtain regulatory approval first, since the approvals they got from the FCC a decade ago made clear they were to be competitors, not a satellite-music monopoly.

The two companies argue, as others have done in similar situations, that the competitive landscape has changed, yada yada; and besides, they really want to merge. There are still only two satellite music-and-talk providers, but the iPod is a legitimate source for lots of music in your car, HD Radio is coming on, and by the time this is all sorted out (and by the time your current XM or Sirius hardware is out of date or no longer usable), there will probably be music-casting via cellular data feeds, WiMax, or some other terrestrial means (land-based antennas). None of these other options gives you the same feed anywhere and everywhere across the United States.

Right now, if you like sports, you have to choose carefully. And sports do jump around. Sirius has more sports (NFL, NBA) but not all of it (MLB, NHL). Racing fans used to go to XM for both NASCAR and Indycar racing, but now NASCAR is on Sirius. And to many people, NASCAR isn't just a sport, it's a religion—albeit one in which the celebrants thank their earthly sponsors as well as the big guy upstairs whenever a TV camera is on them. At any rate, NASCAR moved a bunch of people over to Sirius recently.

A combined channel would have all the sports, but most likely some or all would be premium channels. In the merger announcements, Sirius and XM talked about providing "a la carte" opportunities. Translation: "a la cash register." You'd also have the opportunity to get both Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey, instead of Howard on Sirius and Oprah on XM. But they, too, may be a la carte.

Most subscribers are annoyed they can't get all the sports programming on both the satellite channels. With the merger, they could. But I don't see any near-term mobile (in-car) audio alternative that will offer all sports programming across the country, as opposed to the Bruins in Boston, the Capitals in Washington, and so on. And satellite—both TV and radio—has been a godsend for, say, the Philadelphia sports fan who now lives in San Francisco. With no competitive pressure, there's room for a combined provider to see just how much the market will bear, the way Disney World does with admission prices.

A single company's pooled resources might be better able to fund satellite TV to the car over satellite-radio frequencies. For a DirecTV experience that's the same as in your house, with dozens of channels, you'd still need a three-foot revolving dish (such as TracVision provides). But a couple of channels of child-entertainment fare could happen inside five years. A la carte? Of course.

For tech-minded motorists, a single source of satellite music will spur the installation of a single-chip tuner that goes inside car radios. (XM has one already for both the car and stereo receivers for the house.) If you want satellite radio, it's ready to go when you take delivery, and you get a free three- or six-month trial.

Right now, adding satellite radio so it's controlled by your car's radio costs anywhere from $200 to $800. The cost of the chip would be only a few dollars, which is minuscule compared with the multi-hundred-dollar cost that Sirius and XM currently pay to attract a new subscriber. Some automakers might even embed the antenna, so the owner could activate at any time. And even without activation, the owner might get some music for free. Free the way HD Radio is free, if you don't mind listening to commercials.

Also expect to see more commercials on satellite radio. It's the way of the world, just as commercials are now a part of the movie-theater experience, on the sides of buses, and on the free caps and t-shirts we get. It's possible that one of the a la carte services would be commercial-free music. You could have a package of decades music (1960s, 1970s, 1980s) plus five deep-tracks rock channels for an extra $5 a month, the same music (just less of it) with commercials here and there as standard service for your $12.95 a month (or whatever it goes up to), or possibly free satellite with lots of commercials. Just like regular radio. Plus ca change…