For those who didn't know, today was the deadline for Sirius/XM to make a $175 million dollar debt payment to the parent company of Dish Network. Their CEO Mel Karmazin didn't have it and planned a bankruptcy filing. But at the last minute, Dish competitor Liberty Media (parent of DirecTV) pumped in a 280 million dollar loan (at 15%!!!) with plans to sink another 250 million in exchange for about 40% of Sirius/XM's equity. Karmazin keeps his job which of course is far more important to him than the company he runs. This SOB was ready to wipe out millions of shareholders over a pissing match. Goniff. That's a Yiddish term...look it up. It fits.
I am heartbroken about the recent Sirius/XM merger and have written a previous post about it. Under the new regime choices have been slashed, the music dumbed down and the price has increased. In fact I no longer subscribe and I was one of the very earliest paying customers. OK, one bullet has been dodged but Mel has hundreds of millions more in debt coming due this year. What then? Shovel more of Liberty Media's cash into the moneypit?
Satellite radio was founded on choice. It now fails to deliver. Time to stick a fork in it-at least as long as Mel (fuck you I got mine) Karmazin is running it.
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