According to Hitwise, interest in satellite radio has increased as the holidays approached. Searches containing the word “sirius” surged 78% when comparing the week ending December 17, 2005 to the week before Thanksgiving, while the share of searches containing “xm” were up 13% in the same period.

Hitwise also reports that the market share of visits to Sirius Satellite Radio increased 99% and share of visits to XM Satellite Radio increased 62% for the same period.

[Tekrati] 

Some very impressive numbers here - Yahoo! announced that over 4.4 Million video streams of Howard Stern's Farewell Celebration were streamed on the day of the event. More than 214,000 users stuck around to watch the 4.5 hour party after his final terrestrial broadcast.

Yahoo! promoted the crap out of the event, and it definitely paid off. More than 10,000 new Yahoo! Group members, more than 1,100 photos were shared via Flickr (which were viewed half a million times) and over 122,000 Yahoo! Podcast streams in association with the HowardNation community.

[Press Release] 

For you Opie & Anthony fans, there were a some 'protests' of the Sirius / Stern Farewell Rally at the entrances of the event. I'm sure you 'pests' will enjoy these pics.

Here's photos from the Howard Stern / SIRIUS Farewell Rally.

Yahoo just issued a press release for the online coverage of the Howard Stern Celemonial Walk this Friday. We get a the 'official'information about what's expected to go down (though it's the unexpected stuff we really want to see):

Beginning at 9am (EST). Stern will be escorted on a Yahoo!-branded double-decker bus after his show and brought to an exclusive special event at the Hard Rock Cafe, all of which will be webcast LIVE from Yahoo!.

To access the webcast, consumers can go to yahoo.com and search for "Howard Stern." Simple enough.

[Press Release]

...between Opie & Anthony and Howard Stern. I have a funny feeling that a lot will go down on December 16th when Howard does his ceremonial walk from the K-Rock studios to Sirius Satellite Radio HQ. If you can't make it in person, watch it on Yahoo, because it's sure to be a spectacle.

To add fuel to the fire, this clip (MP3) from the 12/09/05 O&A Show sure has fired up a lot of peeps from both camps. It's even made it's way to Digg. Whether you're a fan of either show or not, listening to that clip will surely be of interest. (Match.com? hmm...)

[Foundry Music] 

Looking for the Howard Stern / Sirius "Dessert" Commercial? Well, look no further. According to Sirius Backstage, this spot first aired on CBS Sunday during the NFL game, and again on Survivor.

This is just the beginning of Sirius' own marketing campaign for Howard's move to satellite. I love this spot and hopefully it sets the tone for things to come.

Watch the commercial after the jump (Flash 8 required). 

And the promotion begins on Yahoo! for the Howard Stern event on December 16th. RadioShack, Crutchfield, Best Buy and Circuit City are all getting major plugs for this. All of which (with the exception of BB) have the S50 prominently displayed on their destination pages.

[Yahoo! Music] 

XM Satellite Radio fans are being treated to a "radio first" with the debut of the "Tissue Time With Beth And Allison" bit. Or so says the press release issued by the "O&A Army." An obvious swipe at Howard Stern's bit "Tissue Time With Heidi Cortez" on Sirius - the press release, craftily put together by some knitters, even made it's way to industry publication FMQB.

Hilarious.

[Press Release] 

(thanks Frank!) 

Looking for the Howard Stern appearance on Bill O'Reilly? Get Sirius Info's got it, so get in there. It's a big ol' download (118Mb) but watching Stern and O'Reilly go tit-for-tat is entertaining at the very least. Over the next three nights The Factor will give a "no spin" look at Howard Stern... should be interesting.

[Get Sirius Info]