Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin has a dream, and it is to buy out his biggest competitor XM Satellite Radio. I guess Mel likes to dream big because XM leads Sirius, a.k.a. the Howard Stern network, by a very large margin inspite of Stern’s obvious boost to the young pay radio service.
Karmazin noted that the two biggest obstacles in his path to fulfilling his dream are price and that sticky little thing called regulatory issues. Of course he forgot the two other obstacles – XM executives have no plans to sell and XM stockholders, at least at this juncture in the satellite radio game, may be more open to buying Sirius than selling out to them.
While both companies are doing well, with XM the recognized leader, neither is setting the investment markets on fire.
When asked about Karmazin’s “dream,” an XM spokesperson said: “We do not comment on our competitors’ wishful thinking.”
Slice of SciFi, as well as being available as an internet podcast downloadable show is also heard each week on XM Satellite Radio on the Sonic Theater channel.