Tomorrow, September 1st, Orbitcast will be launching a new feature that will conjoin a convoluted cacophony of confusion with a mashup of mass mayhem and madness. We've secretly been testing it out, and thanks to help of a select few readers, we're finally ready to launch.

But rather than have ME talk about it... let's see what others in the satellite radio industry are saying....

...check back tomorrow, when all will be revealed.

A big hot button with the FCC is "diversity in media" - where African-Americans, Hispanics, Women and others have a strong presence in todays media - not just in the sense of programming, but in ownership as well.

And when many diverse groups, including the NAACP and LULAC, came out in favor of the merger many wondered how a merger improve diversity. The two words seem to, by definition, work against each other.

An article today in Black Enterprise explains it all. In short, XM has "The Power" (ch 169) and carries shows featuring Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Wynton Marsalis and Tyra Banks. Sirius also offers shows featuring Black celebrities and sports figures such as Keyshawn Johnson, Tiki Barber, Jamie Foxx and 50 Cent.

XM's President and interim-CEO Nate Davis, is an African American and a member of XM’s board since 1999. Davis plans to play a pivotal role in the new company if the merger is approved.

By contrast, only 1/8th of full-power radio stations are run by women and people of color in the U.S., and that's despite being two-thirds of the population. Even radio companies like Greenstone Media, with the financial backing of Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Susan Ness, couldn't survive in today's radio environment. And that's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Now I don't think it's being suggested that a merging of Sirius and XM will miraculously fix the media diversity problem, but both satellite radio providers already have dedicated themselves to providing diverse programming. So I think the thought is that by empowering a combined company to better compete, it opens up more opportunity for diverse programming to reach the population.

[Black Enterprise]

Still need to hook up your dorm room with a good alarm clock? Check out the Timex XM Alarm Clock Radio available on Woot! for a meager $49.99.

Includes a line-in for your iPod, and a line-out for additional speakers (to ensure you wake up for that Friday-morning class).

The Timex XM-Ready Alarm Clock (TMX1A) also comes with an XM CNP-100 Connect-and-Play Antenna (which normally ranges from $40-$50 by itself), plus a one-year warranty thrown in for good measure. All you need is an XM sub, and you're good to go.

(Tip to parents: big, loud, alarm clocks - preferrably with XMLM set as a preset - are a necessity in college.)

[Woot!]
Thanks Mike!

XM and Sirius together spent a total of $810,000 in the first half of 2007 to lobby the federal government, yet the NAB spent a total of $4.3 million during the same period, according to a disclosure form.

XM Satellite Radio spent $580,000, according to public records. Sirius Satellite Radio lobbying firms - the Paul Laxalt Group, Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Ricchetti Inc. - spent $230,000 total through separate filings. A fourth lobbyist, the Amani Group, has not filed a lobbying report yet.

The NAB, which represents roughly 7,000 radio stations, lobbied on various issues including the satellite radio merger, according to the Senate’s public records office. In addition to Congress, the NAB used the $4.3 million to lobby the FCC and the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Under a 1995 law, lobbyists are required to disclose any activity that could influence executive and legislative branch members.

[Forbes]

The FAA has selected ITT Corp to build the first portion of a new satellite-based air traffic control system.

ITT beat competitors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon for the $1.8 billion project that could give the company a leg up in securing other contracts related to the air-travel system.

The proposed system, which the FAA said posed "no technical risks," uses GPS technology to replace the FAA's aging network of 50-year-old ground-based analog radar technology.

Lockheed was considered the favorite for bagging the deal, while Raytheon's proposal included the XM WX Weather service as part of the offering.

[Wall Street Journal]

Veteran NFL broadcaster and Super Bowl winning head coach John Madden will be returning for his 4th season as a commentator on Sirius NFL Radio (ch 124).

Throughout the 2007 NFL season, Madden will join Adam Schein and Gil Brandt every Sunday on "The Stadium Tailgate Show," Sirius NFL Radio's pre-game program which airs Sundays from 9am - 12pm ET. Madden will also appear every Friday and Monday throughout the season on "The Afternoon Blitz," the talk show hosted by Schein, Solomon Wilcots and Jim Miller that airs weekdays from 3 - 7pm ET on Sirius NFL Radio.

One of the most popular broadcasters in all of sports, Madden is entering his 27th season as an NFL analyst. He has been a Sirius NFL Radio commentator since 2004 and currently serves as lead analyst for NBC's Sunday Night Football broadcasts.

Garmin, the market share leader when it comes to personal navigation devices, has just taken the wraps off of their latest generation GPS devices: the nuvi 750, nuvi 760 and the nuvi 770.

The nuvi 700 series is packed full of cool features, like a "car locator" so you don't need to remember where you parked. It also includes a built-in MP3 players with Audible support, and a handy-dandy built-in FM transmitter (hey... remember those?) so you can either listen to your tunes or the turn-by-turn directions through your car stereo. The 760 and 770 also can receive real-time traffic reports, and let you steer clear of them.

But wait... where's the satellite radio support? There is none.

The real-time traffic data, is provided by an integrated FM TMC (Traffic Message Channel) traffic receiver. In the U.S., that data is provided by Clear Channel's Total Traffic Network. Not XM or Sirius.

And the MP3/Audible support is all you're going to find in the audio category. Never mind that they have that built-in FM transmitter issue already taken care of.

I've already ranted about how Sirius and XM have missed the boat when it comes to the personal GPS market, and this is just another example.

This morning, Garmin CFO Kevin Rauckman was on CNBC talking about the company's outlook, and he mentioned that they're focusing more on the Retail channel more than the OEM channel. The reasoning was that Retail just moved much faster than OEM, and they're just seeing much more sales on the Retail side.

This is exactly the opposite of satellite radio's strategy. Being included in personal GPS devices could be an opportunity for satellite radio on the retail side. It provides access to an affluent market who's willing to spend $500+ on a device, and if XM/Sirius applied the OEM model to Retail (i.e., complimentary 3-month or 6-month subscription), they gain access to more ears as well.

It's time to get on the ball with this one.

[Garmin Press Release]

While you're stuck in grueling traffic this Labor Day Weekend, XM will be keeping the music in overdrive with a channel dedicated to nothing but songs about cars and driving: Car-B-Q.

"Car-B-Q" will air this Saturday, September 1st at Midnight ET throughout the weekend until Monday, September 3rd at 5PM ET on XM Live (ch 120).

It's all about cars and life on the road, mixing automobile music of every genre to make your drive a (somewhat) more pleasant one. You'll be sure to hear the songs you love including classics like "Hot Rod Lincoln," "Little Red Corvette," "Highway Star" and of course "Low Rider" - all so you don't have to hear the words "are there yet?"

[XM Car-B-Q]

Based on yesterday's announcement that the Grateful Dead Channel will be on Sirius channel 32 starting on Sept. 9th, the question remained of what will become of Sirius Disorder (who currently resides in that slot).

The official word is that Sirius Disorder will be moving to channel 70. As a result, Planet Jazz (who currently resides in the channel 70 slot) will subsequently be retired.

[Sirius Disorder, Planet Jazz]

Slacker continues to impress with their innovation and foresight. This time from a social media perspective, Slacker has unveiled a MySpace widget allowing you to embed your own customized station onto your MySpace page.

Check it out by going to Slacker.com, create or listen to one of your stations (custom station or just a regular preset station works) and then go to "Station Options" and select "Share This Station."

There you'll see a "MySpace" button which gives you the code to embed onto your MySpace page. You get two options for MySpace players - one shows just the album art and player; the other gives additional channel details.

Of course, you're not limited to just MySpace. The code can be embedded pretty much anywhere on the web. I've embedded the Comedy channel right in this post (after the jump).

This is impressive on many different levels. First, it fulfills a need because it keeps your MySpace page fresh yet still personalized. MySpace, aside from having the most market share, has undoubtedly done a lot in terms of music discovery, and a customizable internet radio channel just makes sense. Second, from a viral marketing standpoint, it's brilliant. The Slacker Widget beats the heck out of what Pandora offers as a widget, and bests the likes of Sirius or XM who don't offer anything like this. Satellite Radio should probably reevaluate this strategy - even if with just a limited selection of channels - because the viral nature of having an embeddable widget may prove extremely valuable (more than the email addresses acquired from the 3-day trials).

Check out the Slacker MySpace Widget after the jump (RSS/Email readers will need to click through to view)...