Mel Karmazin gets raise, contract extension

July 01, 2009 The exercise price on his new stock options is 43 cents, which is where shares closed on Tuesday. Karmazin, who signed on with Sirius shortly after Howard Stern said he was joining the company, has taken some drastic measures lately to keep the company afloat in the midst of huge debt brought on in part by Stern's $500 million, five-year salary and massive licensing fees paid to the NFL and other entities. The CEO managed, after 18 months of wrangling with the FCC and antitrust regulators, to merge Sirius and XM last year, and this year raised as much as $530 million by selling a chunk of the company to Liberty Media.

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