^{Photo Illustration by Ruby Washington} 

In February, rival satellite radio networks Sirius and XM announced they would merge—or try to. Federal regulators are now evaluating whether the deal violates antitrust laws.

Sirius chief Mel Karmazin, who would run the new company if the merger gets approved, is an old hand at brokering high-wire corporate marriages. As head of Infinity Broadcasting, he sold the company to Westinghouse/CBS; at CBS, he spearheaded its 2000 merger with Viacom. That locked him into four years of hand-to-hand combat with Sumner Redstone, but it hasn’t soured Karmazin on the art of the deal.

Condé Nast Portfolio: After you announced the merger, XM stock stalled. If the market is as smart as you say, doesn’t that mean it believes the deal is not going to happen?

Mel Karmazin: I don’t think it has anything to do with whether the merger is going through. The satellite stocks are all significantly off their high. All I can tell you is that when I joined [Sirius], we had 700,000 subscribers. We have more than 6 million today.

Well, you were the one who insisted on going back to a public company when you came out of the shortest retirement in history, so maybe that’s fitting.

I like the idea of the report card—the stock price.

For someone who likes to keep score, it must be frustrating to wake up every day and look at it.

Horribly, terribly frustrating. Most C.E.O.’s, you know, don’t buy stock; they get it as options or restricted shares. In the past two years, I’ve bought over $20 million, with cash. That’s serious money, even for me.

Are you buying because you think it’s a good investment or because you’re hoping to affect the share price?

It hasn’t affected the price.

One thing’s for sure: You are a man with an urge to merge.

Yeah, I think bigger is better.

Even when it means working for Sumner Redstone?

I would have liked to have left at the time of the merger, but the boards didn’t want that.

You could have sold tickets to those board meetings with you and Sumner.

Oh, they were fun. While I was there the Osbournes were on MTV, and I will tell you, Sumner and I were far, far more interesting to watch.

Did you ever think it would work?

Nobody did. I knew from the beginning what—who—he was: a controlling shareholder.

Did you learn anything from him?

Nothing good that I can think of.

After you left, you said it was stupid to spin off CBS.

It’s the opposite of what I believed in.

If you were Jeff Bewkes, would you split up Time Warner?

When you make a decision just for your stock price, the deals tend to not work.

Your son owns eight radio stations. Do you chide him for being old media?

No, he gives me a hard time because his radio stations are making more money than Sirius.

Some media executives are dynastic, like Sumner. But not you.

No, I’m trying to change my last name. I don’t want to trade off of my son’s success.