Mel Karmazin, head of Sirius XM, needs to get his story straight.

In February of last year, while trying to persuade regulators to allow the merger between Sirius and XM Satellite Radio Companies, Mel said: "The combined company is committed to consumer choice, including offering consumers the ability to pick and choose the channels and content they want on a more a la carte basis."

Last week, in a talk with reporters at the Reuters Media Summit, he said something entirely different, saying that the newly-combined Sirius XM is reducing its channel offerings as part of a $400 million cost-cutting plan.

Mel Karmazin himself will decide which channels stay and which channels go.

When, a few weeks ago, channels started disappearing from the combined service, XM subscribers and Sirius subscribers howled in disbelief as their favorite niche channels went away. Now, apparently, even more channels will disappear.

Mel's explanation now to his subscriber base?

"You as a subscriber, though you may miss your channel, you need to make sure we make money because you want us to be around so we can invest in programming and we can provide you with all these services."

I don't know about you as a subscriber, but I as a subscriber unsubscribed. And had I not already done so, I would after reading that nervy quote above. Excuse me?? I am expected to support you even though you are taking away the very reason I paid you money in the first place?

Methinks this man has forgotten how easy it is to access music for free, via radio and websites. And methinks that Mel is out of touch with reality where his company is concerned. He's invested heavily in big-star names and now has to find the subscriber base to support that investment. In order to plump up his company's bottom line, he's cutting channels, the very thing that subscribers come to him for. And investors are looking at stocks that are trading at 16 cents per share and not feeling very good about their investment.

Now, has Uncle Mel taken a hit himself? Not that anyone can tell. His compensation package seems the same as it was last year, worth over 5 million bucks.

And has Uncle Mel been able to restructure his company's nearly $34 billion debt load? Um...not so far.

Perhaps Mel not only misspoke, he mismanaged. Time will tell, and Sirius XM seems to be running out of that.

Written by Sandy Weaver Carman