Did Mel Karmazin deal Sirius to hell ?

BY SDH It is said that you always go back to where you began. For Mel Karmazin he began in radio and now he’s back in radio, the only difference is that this time it's satellite. He may be back on familiar turfs but over the years his new gig has proven difficult and sometimes extremely expensive in an effort to keep some form of relevancy. Over a year ago it was announced that the Karmazin lead Sirius was merging with its rival XM to create a satellite radio giant that would go un-challenged. This very fact sparked concerns at the FCC and to this day the merger has not been approved. Poor Mel was on Capital Hill more than many of our senators pleading his case trying to convince them that a Sirius XM join up would work and benefit subscribers. But trying to get his merger green lighted was only part of Mel's headaches. Since he took over as CEO, he has spent big to land some of the biggest talent hoping that their shows would cover costs and more. But were such deals smart for a business mostaly dependant on revenue generated by subscriptions? For Howard Stern alone, Mel dropped $500 Million and hundreds of millions more doing deals with the NFL, NBA and NASCAR to name a few. Mel Karmazin spent a shit load of money but by doing so has put Sirius in a serious position. Even though he insists that if a merger with XM doesn't happen Sirius can survive, many believe he needs the merger with XM to help share the heavy load he has amassed since being named CEO. We shouldn’t be surprised at all if XM decided to pay a fee to get out of the merger agreement, leaving poor Mel out in the cold. Was Karmazin too eager to make his mark and spent too much in the process? This reminds me of Jean-Marie Messier, the one time CEO of Vivendi Universal. He went on a massive shopping spree buying everything in site in his effort to build a massive media company only to sink the company deep into the red which lead to his ouster. Is Mel Karmazin heading down the same road, will his merger ever be green lighted, is XM radio secretly playing against him doing things to make sure a merge doesn’t happen? Sumner Redstone is probably happy he fired him, saying to himself that “Mel would have probably lead Viacom down the same road, spending big and tying up the company in what appears to be a doomed merger” Related: Satellite radio in limbo as merger stalls