Eyes on Sirius XM's Karmazin Speech Tuesday

After Sirius and XM Radio's hard and long-fought regulatory victory for merger, a whole new fight is underway to follow through on all those promises to Wall Street and Washington policymakers: to find those "synergies" that will help the newly formed company better complete with an onslaught of new technologies.

Translation: job cuts are probably in the works, analysts say.

So when Sirius chief executive Mel Karmazin takes the stage at Merrill Lynch's Media Fall Preview Conference in Marina del Rey, CA on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 11:00 am EST, employees at XM in the District and Sirius in New York, Wall Street and Washington will be listening for any news on product cutbacks, organizational changes and job cuts.

As of yet, the companies haven't officially disclosed any details about organizational changes. But analysts said part of the justification for the merger has been to save costs by reducing headcount from combined sales and marketing, programming and technical staff.

The company, with 18 million subscribers for its satellite radio service, has seen its stock prices plummet as confidence wanes in its ability to add new users quickly while reducing its hefty operating costs to keep expensive acts like Howard Stern and Martha Stewart. Also casting a dark cloud over the company's prospects is a soft auto sales market, a main channel of distribution for their radios.

By Cecilia Kang | September 5, 2008; 11:01 AM ET | Category: Cecilia Kang
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Where's Howard on XM? The company only had a year to plan for the change. No wonder the stock is in the toilet due to crummy management.

Posted by: joe | September 7, 2008 7:00 PM

The FCC took the piss out of both of these companies. Howard has less than 2 yrs left on his contract and by all accounts he's done after that. That's why there not in a hurry to impliment the changes. This company is finished.

Posted by: fido | September 9, 2008 1:40 PM

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