Mel Karmazin

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Melvin Alan "Mel" Karmazin, a native New Yorker, (born August 24, 1943)^[1] is an executive who has held several top jobs in the broadcasting industry and is currently CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio.

Born in Manhattan, Karmazin was selling radio ads at the age of 17.^[2] He graduated from Pace University with a bachelor's degree in business administration^[1] and worked his way up from the bottom rungs of the radio ladder in New York City. He co-founded and was President of Infinity Broadcasting, eventually becoming President and CEO of CBS.

Karmazin presided over New York's WNEW-AM and WNEW for Metromedia when he was approached to run Infinity Broadcasting in 1981. Soon after he would add fellow New York stations WKTU-FM and WFAN into Infinity's stable.

Karmazin ran Infinity for 15 years, then sold the company to Westinghouse, then parent of CBS. "The joke about him was that he was so pushy that advertisers used to buy airtime from Mel just to get him out of their office," according to a Fortune magazine article.^[2]

When Infinity merged with CBS Corporation in January 1997, Karmazin would first head CBS Radio as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. By May of the same year he would become Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the CBS Station Group, overseeing the network's radio and television properties. He served as President and Chief Operating Officer of CBS Corporation from April of 1998 until January of 1999. Viacom, a media conglomerate that includes CBS, UPN, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and Showtime, absorbed CBS Corporation of 2000.

As an executive of an even bigger conglomerate, Karmazin and Viacom chief Sumner Redstone had many differences, leading to Karmazin's resignation in May 2004.^[3] Karamazin later said he didn't get along with Redstone and found it difficult to be "No. 2" at a company, but particularly under Redstone. The two executives continued to snipe at each other through the media even a year after Karmazin left Viacom.^[2]

Karmazin accepted the top job at Sirius in November 2004. He was a strong supporter of radio shock jock Howard Stern at Viacom,^[3] and Stern signed up at Sirius Radio at about the same time Karamazin did.

In his first year at Sirius, Fortune magazine reported in November 2005, Karmazin reached deals with Ford and BMW to include the company's radios in their new cars and helped launch Sirius's first portable music player (both initiatives were in the wake of Sirius's rival, XM Radio, pioneering those moves). He also recruited Martha Stewart to Sirius, acquired the programming rights to NASCAR, and raised $500,000 in debt financing.^[2]

Karmazin has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, the Radio Hall of Fame, a recipient of the National Association of Broadcasters National Radio Award, and the IRTS Gold Medal.

A resident of Greenwich, Connecticut, he has a son Craig, born July 11, 1975, and a daughter Dina, born in 1971, from his marriage to Sharon Karmazin, which ended in divorce in 1994. Craig has followed in his father's footsteps, as he now is the president of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Good Karma Broadcasting.