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March 14, 2007

Mel Karmazin's Greatest Hits

As XM and Sirius await to see if their $13 billion merger proposal passes muster with the FCC (which specifically prohibited such a thing when it awarded the two companies their licenses), let's take a look back and see what Mel Karmazin's thinking has been about the subject since he took over as Sirius CEO two years ago.

“I’ve been with the company about eight weeks. This is about my third rumor that I’ve confronted. I have not met with the chairman [of XM]. I have not met with the CEO. So I have no idea where any of this came from.”
--The Washington Post, January 27, 2005

“It would be great if there was a monopoly, but the second best thing is a duopoly….There is nothing inherent that would preclude the companies from having interoperable radio or shared content. It’s not the current business plan, but nothing would stop that.”
--Advertising Age, April 11, 2005

“I don’t look at XM at all. A merger is not in our business model and there have been no discussions at all.”
--Financial Times, May 9, 2005

“We’d be very happy to consider acquiring (XM), but the body language I’m seeing is they’re not interested.”
--Daily Variety, June 8, 2005

“I certainly think there would be advantages if the two companies merge, with cost savings and the like, but our business plan doesn’t contemplate that…There’s a lot of competition for satellite radio. If there’s a lot of competition, then the arguments of market power seem to go away.”
--The Hollywood Reporter, September 26, 2006

“We believe this is the next logical step in the evolution of satellite radio.”
--Teleconference, February 20, 2007

Posted by Michael Prospero at March 14, 2007 11:52 AM | Category: news + current events | 1 Comment

1 COMMENT

Posted by: James R. Johnson at March 14, 2007 4:47 PM: Looks to me that Mel was in different stages of analysis, in each of those carefully chosen comments. Let's hope his conclusion bears fruit!