Below are the top 20 Orbitcast posts from 2007 in terms of unique visits to each article page. I'm not saying that these are the "best of" Orbitcast posts - hardly - just the ones that garnered the most attention around the interweb.

So without further adieu, the winners (in order) are:

1. Audio: Opie & Anthony comments that caused XM suspension
2. XM subscribers backlash over O&A suspension
3. Sirius renews contract with Bubba the Love Sponge
4. 25 years of music from The Howard Stern Show
5. OFFICIAL: Sirius and XM Announce Merger
6. Sirius Beats 6 Million Subscribers and First Cash-Flow Positive Quarter
7. CES: SiriusConnect SC-V1 Audio/Video Tuner (Sirius Backseat TV)
8. New Pioneer AVIC-D3 Unveiled
9. Sponsors pull advertising over O&A suspension
10. Did Opie & Anthony cross the line with Condi Rice?
11. Howard Stern engaged to Beth O
12. Not just Sirius: Bubba returns to Regular Radio
13. XM-Sirius Merger Plans to be Announced Today?
14. BREAKING: Is XM down?
15. BREAKING: XM suspends Opie and Anthony
16. CES: Bushnell ONIX 400 Weather Tracker
17. Report: DoJ Antitrust Chief to approve merger
18. Penny Crone, George Flowers Leave Howard 100 News
19. CES: XM's New Mini-Tuner Car Stereos
20. Arbitron ratings for Satellite Radio

It's amazing when you look back. All the crazy events that occured in such a short amount of time. For an industry that - in the grand scheme of things - is relatively small, satellite radio sure has its fair share of stories to tell.

Happy New Year everyone! See you "next year" (yuk yuk).

Early reports of holiday sales this year indicate that sales of MP3 players went flat, while overall music sales were down at a dramatic rate. I wonder if this spells an opportunity for satellite radio.

Dollar sales of MP3 players between November 18th to December 9th were down 16% from the same period last year, while unit sales declined 9%, according to NPD. These numbers, sadly, do not include the iPod - which likely contributed to the decline in other MP3 player sales.

The sales plateau is likely the result of a saturated market. "The market is in a position where most of the people who want an MP3 player have one," NPD analyst Stephen Baker told InformationWeek.

"The iPod is not exactly a blistering growth segment," Baker said. "It's a good segment, and you'll still make money on it, but it's not growing 75% a year."

Shoppers were choosing cheaper - and smaller capacity - flash versions of MP3 players, rather than the more expensive hard-disk-drive versions. Most people don't have enough music and video files to justify paying more for a device with 80-plus gigabytes of storage, Baker said.

Meanwhile, overall music sales during the Christmas shopping season were down an incredible 21% from last year, reports Variety.

From the week of Thanksgiving up through the day before Christmas Eve, 83.9 million albums were sold. That's a whopping decrease of 21.38 million units from 105.28 million in 2006.

All this could mean good news for satellite radio. A sharp decline in overall music sales, plus flattening sales of digital music players (with smaller capacities), means that many people will have less to listen to - especially during an arduous commute.

Marketing the message "hey, you with the teeny MP3 player and no CDs in your car, subscribe to satellite radio!" may be a bit more difficult to get across... but the opportunity is still there. Just need to find a way to seize it.

And speaking of opportunities, at the same time that MP3 and overall music sales are down, dollar sales of GPS devices were up more than 214% and unit sales soared 488%. Kind of makes you think there was a missed opportunity there.

[InformationWeek, Variety]

Here's a quickie for a little pre-New Year levity: Best Buy has a $50 Sirius gift card up for sale on their website for... $55.

The boys over at Consumerist talked to a Best Buy rep, who said Sirius charges the retailer an extra $5 for the $50 gift card. Yet a little research shows that other gift cards seem to match up to their given price.

So I'd say it's just a typo. But a funny one at that.

[Consumerist]
Thanks realwx!

In the past year, more Americans have become used to thinking of their cellphones as entertainment devices at a soaring pace, according to a new-media survey from Deloitte & Touche.

Deloitte's first edition of the survey (which was performed just 8 months earlier) showed that 24 percent of U.S. consumers used their cellphones as entertainment devices. Since then, a follow up survey shows that entertainment usage on cellphones jumped 50 percent, bringing the total of U.S. consumers who use their cellphones as entertainment devices to 36 percent.

The findings of the survey of 2,081 Americans, conducted in late October, were provided to The Hollywood Reporter before their official release next month.

Roughly 62 percent of "millennials" (13-to-24-years-old) are using their cellphones as entertainment devices - that's up from 46 percent in the previous study conducted in late February. And among Generation X consumers (25-to-41-year-olds), the number grew to 47 percent - up drastically from 29 percent in the earlier survey.

That's a pretty rapid adoption rate. And only in eight months. Now imagine how that usage will grow in the next two years?

Note to Sirius and XM: If you want to ride this wave - stop thinking of your mobile services as a revenue generators, and start thinking of them as a lead generators. The key to adoption, is exposure.

[Reuters]

Apple is reportedly readying a big push for HD Radio boomboxes equipped with iTunes Tagging technology at the upcoming MacWorld show.

Introduced back in September, the iTunes Tagging technology allows terrestrial radio stations broadcasting in HD Radio to encode song data in each track. Listeners are then able to "tag" the songs for later purchase on iTunes. CBS Radio, Clear Channel, Cumulus, Cox, Entercom and Greater Media all are in the process of adding iTunes Tagging.

According to iBiquity, "Apple plans to offer participating stations a revenue share for songs referred to and purchased on iTunes,” adding extra incentive for HD Radio broadcasters to adopt iTunes Tagging.

But the question remains: who does this help out more? HD Radio, or Apple?

Sure, a rev-share would be nice, but there's a lot of steps involved before that revenue becomes realized. And the benefit comes from having your own technology embedded into a myriad of devices, not from having your competition embedded into your own proprietary devices.

[iLounge]

Orbitcast Radio was a complete hit, and did 10-times better than I ever could have expected. Thank you all for who called in, participated in the chat room (which is still booming right now as I write this), and especially who listened in.

This will definitely be an ongoing weekly show, and obviously I'll need to make it longer. Let's try 1-hour next time and see how it goes.

If you want to download the show, click here for the streaming or MP3 version. Or if you want, subscribe to the RSS feed so you can download it as a podcast.

Or try out the player below:

Again, thanks all for the incredible debut show, and feel free to comment here on your thoughts (such as: a better day/time, topics, criticism, etc.).

UPDATE: Here's a direct link to the MP3 file.

Before I kick off Orbitcast Radio today, I also wanted to announce that nominations for the 2007 Orbitcast Awards (aka "The Orbies") are now open.

This is entirely a People's Voice award. There's no editorial influence or bias here. The channels, shows, on-air hosts, and everything else selected here is 100% powered by you.

Categories include:

• Best Comedy Talk Show
• Best Kept Secret on Satellite Radio
• Best Music Show
• Most Creative Music Channel
• ...and much much more

I figure that since everyone else can have their own awards "show" - the satellite radio industry deserves one as well. There's some amazing talent coming from those birds, and it's about time that everyone on both Sirius and XM gets recognition for all their hard work and effort.

Nominations are open now, head on over and submit your favorites today.

[2007 Orbitcast Awards]

Introducing Orbitcast Radio, a live internet radio show hosted by your's truly. I've been thinking about doing this for a long time (too long) and finally decided to stop thinking and start doing. So here it is.

The debut episode of Orbitcast Radio will "air" tomorrow (Friday, December 28th) at 1pm ET/10am PT. This show will run for only a 1/2 hour.

Some of the benefits of this format:

• You can call-in and directly interact, ask questions, and participate (call in number: 646-595-3690)
• There's a live webchat that lets everyone participate, even if you don't want to call-in
• If you can't make it, no worries, the shows get archived so you can listen at your leisure

I'm using the opportunity of a slow work week to launch Orbitcast Radio and work out the kinks, so if you get the chance to participate, I would very much appreciate it.

Miley Cyrus, star of Disney Channel's Hannah Montana, will be taking over Sirius Hits 1 (ch 1), starting tomorrow.

The pop sensation will take time out of her sold out US tour to play her favorite songs, share stories and countdown the year's top 45 pop songs.

"Miley Radio!" premieres December 28th at 12pm ET and will run through January 1st.

Miley will also host special editions of "Hit-Bound" (the Sirius Hits 1 show that showcases artists/songs that will be the next big thing), and "Best of Live Earth Countdown" (a recount of memorable moments from Live Earth).

While Miley Cyrus is also the daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus, she became an overnight sensation herself as the star of the Disney Channel's series Hannah Montana. In 2007, she launched the "Best of Both Worlds" tour - performing as both herself and Hannah Montana - and tickets for the 54 city tour sold out in record time.

Forbes recently ranked Miley at #17 on their 'Top 20 earners under 25.'

XM's POTUS '08 channel will be televised live on C-SPAN tomorrow (Friday, December 28th) from 3pm to 6pm ET.

The C-SPAN cameras will be inside the POTUS studio live to show XM broadcasting. POTUS' Joe Mathieu will be behind the mic alongside host Adrienne Mitchell reporting the news, plus there'll likely be special guests in studio and on the phone.

Even if you're not a political buff, this will probably give you a good behind-the-scenes look at the XM studios during a typical broadcast day.