XM Reshuffles the Deck

The rough airwaves that have made XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR  ) a nauseating investment in recent months may be starting to settle, now that the company has made some executive changes. On Monday, Nate Davis was named president and chief operating officer, in a move that created the COO role and stripped CEO Hugh Panero of his presidential hat. This shakeup comes two weeks after the company revamped its inefficient marketing department.

I dislike that Davis can be considered an internal hire, having served on the company's board of directors over the past seven years. Then again, I also thought Bob Iger represented a wrong turn for Disney (NYSE: DIS  ) when it had eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY  ) Meg Whitman coming in for an interview, but Iger has proved to be a great choice early in his tenure at the family-entertainment giant.

That's about the only thing I don't like about this decision, though. OK, maybe I'm not entirely stoked that Davis sports a telecommunications pedigree instead of a broadcasting background, like Sirius' (Nasdaq: SIRI  ) Mel Karmazin has, but I'm willing to give Davis a chance to right this ship that has somehow run off course.

It's a step in the right direction -- because it's a step, period. Stagnancy was getting the company nowhere. The recent executive shuffle is a silent admission that the current regime has fallen out of favor. I provided a little tough love to XM yesterday. It deserves it, given its many missteps of late.

The active Rule Breakers newsletter recommendation has a long way to go to get back to the all-time highs it set over the 2004 holiday season. That's not the goal at the moment. The company has to stop the bleeding and win back the market's confidence. The freshly appointed leaders have a lot riding on their shoulders. Please, be different.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a Sirius and XM subscriber. He owns shares in Disney, which, along with eBay, is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. The Fool has a disclosure policy . Disney and eBay are Stock Advisor selections. He is also part of theRule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.