It’s ‘disgraceful’ that the NAB ‘is paying people’ like former At...
It’s “disgraceful” that the NAB “is paying people” like former Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft to write letters to regulatory agencies urging that the XM-Sirius merger be rejected, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told the Lehman Bros. Worldwide Wireless Conference in…
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N.Y. Thurs. “It’s what goes on and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Karmazin said. If it were up to him, “there shouldn’t be anybody speaking out about the merger because I think the regulatory agencies are the ones who should be dealing with it,” Karmazin said: “That’s what the FCC is for. That’s what the DoJ is for.” Satellite radio’s 14 million subscribers are “the biggest supporters” of the merger, he said. But in the face of the NAB’s aggressive opposition, “you've not heard us” take to the air urging subscribers to write their congressmen to say the merger’s a good idea, Karmazin said: “You could fault us for not doing that, for not marshaling our subscribers, and you should assume that something like that is something that could happen in the future.” NAB couldn’t be reached for comment at our deadline Thurs.