Karmazin

TargetSpot's Eyal Goldwerger (pictured) has stepped down as CEO as part of what's being called a "planned reorganization." He will continue to advise the company's board, and he remains a shareholder.

TargetSpot is the largest online audio sales network. Goldwerger delivered a "POV" address at RAIN Summit West earlier this month in Las Vegas (coverage of his speech, and audio, is in RAIN here). Goldwerger joined TargetSpot as CEO in 2009. CRO Mitch Kline and CTO Leigh Newsome will serve as "co-CEOs" to replace him.

News also broke this morning that satellite broadcaster SiriusXM Radio has named interim CEO James Meyer as Mel Karmazin's fulltime replacement as CEO, effective immediately.

Finally, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment has brought on former Huffington Post executive Brian Kaminsky as EVP of operations for the digital division.

SiriusXM CEO Mel Karmazin called ad-supported customizable Internet radio "a race to the bottom in terms of business model," as the quality of the user experience depends on a low spot load.

Karmazin, who announced last week he'll step down as SiriusXM CEO in February, spoke on his companies Q3 earnings call yesterday (his comments were reported by Billboard.biz).

"Those companies (ad-supported, personalized webcasters, such as Pandora) which can grow users and provide good customer experience usually have the worst business models," he said. He said fixing their businesses would take "a whole lot more commercials, and that means harming the customer's experience."

It will be interesting to see if SiriusXM puts Karmazin's idea into practice when the company launches its own online custom radio, which he promised it will by the end of the year.

"Not because we think it's a good business," he qualified, but because customers want it.

Read more in Billboard.biz here.

SiriusXM CEO Mel Karmazin has reportedly indicated that SiriusXM will launch its own Pandora-style personalized streaming audio service, likely within the coming year, according to RBR. Karmazin spoke at the Citi Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference in San Francisco last week.

Karmazin spoke of adding personalization as part of the Sirius 2.0 features at least as early as November of 2010 (see RAIN coverage here). By summer, CNet reported the personalizable service would be available in some cars by 2013 (more here).

"I can assure you that if our subscribers would like to have personalization we’re going to give it to them," Karmazin told conference attendees, as reported by RBR. "So, you should assume, you know, that the idea of personalization is something that Pandora, Spotify and iHeartRadio and Slacker and all of these companies are doing. There is satellite radio and it will expand and make that personalization available, probably this year. I don’t think it’s a big deal. We’re not going into it as a business. We, again, like our business model. But we’re going into it saying, you know what, if our subscribers like that feature and they want to be able to customize content, we’re going to give them the ability to do that."

Read RBR's coverage here.

RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter is brought to you by: Kurt Hanson, Executive Editor; Paul Maloney, Senior Editor; Michael Schmitt, Associate Editor; Jim Pavilack, Contributing Writer; Jennifer Lane, RAIN Summits President.