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Bored of Directors at Sirius XM

By Rick Munarriz – Updated Apr 6, 2017 at 12:24AM

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Sirius XM Radio's chairman resigns. Don't panic.

The Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) boardroom is shifting, but there's no cause for alarm.

Chairman Gary Parsons resigned from the company yesterday. The move isn't really a surprise. Parsons helped guide XM through satellite radio's infancy, but this is Mel Karmazin's company now.

The combination of Sirius and XM may have been billed as a merger of equals, but it was Karmazin's Sirius that was pulling all the strings in acquiring the larger -- yet slower-growing -- XM last year.

Parsons gets to leave the company at an opportune moment. After posting breakeven results for the first time -- and nabbing a Standard & Poor's credit rating upgrade -- no one can accuse Parsons of bailing out of a sinking ship. Sirius XM is here to stay.

Although it accepted Liberty Capital's (NASDAQ:LCAPA) financial aid under cutthroat terms, it has gone on to prove that it will be the one shoveling dirt over terrestrial radio's casket -- and not the other way around.

Parsons' chairmanship is being passed on to non-executive director Eddy Hartenstein. He's the CEO of the Los Angeles Times, but don't hold the demise of print media against him. He also spent a few years heading up DirecTV (NYSE:DTV), and it's been widely speculated that John Malone's Liberty angle will find a way to cross-promote DirecTV satellite television subscriptions with Sirius XM satellite radio memberships.

So rest easy, investors.

It was three years ago when Pierce Roberts resigned from the XM board, warning of "a significant chance of a crisis on the horizon." XM fell into Sirius' arms a year later.

No one believes the sky is falling anymore.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a subscriber to both Sirius and XM. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also a member of the Rule Breakers analytical team, seeking out the next great growth stock early in its defiance. The Fool has a disclosure policy.

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