If you missed Mel Karmazin's presentation at the Merrill Lynch Media & Entertainment Conference this morning, and subsequently learned the archived audio is no longer archived, there's a few writeups 'round the interweb you can read... each with their own take.
Forbes focused on how Karmazin discussed the fundamentals of Sirius' business strategy. From the goal of ad revenue reaching 10% of total revenue, to key growth drivers like factory-installations, to Sirius Backseat TV; Forbes actually gives a good rundown of some highlights.
CNN Money Blogs took the merger angle, shining the spotlight on Mel's response to Merrill Lynch media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen introduction. "How dare you say XM is our only competitor?" said Karmazin. "We compete with terrestrial radio and Apple’s iPod in a robust digital entertainment market."
Radio Ink, on the otherhand, decided to point the finger at the Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. CEO's statement that the XM-Sirius merger would lead to lower costs to consumers, and thus be "good for the country." (Likely in the public-interest sense, and not in the geo-political sense... but ehh, it makes for good headlines.)
Amazingly though, Radio Ink did include Karmazin's statement that Sirius competes "with the Clear Channels and CBS's of the world, and ... we are the fifth-largest radio-revenue company today." SiriusBuzz posted a slide from the presentation illustrating this.
Thanks Gary!
I do some work with the NAB, and Karmazin's argument regarding competition is disingenuously tenuous at best. One could make the argument that every entity in the "digital entertainment market" is in competition, as they compete for consumers time and attention. Using that logic, Mel could argue that Sirius also competes with the Internet, television, and movies? But why stop at digital entertainment? He should include reading, theater, concerts, painting, climbing trees...