Directed Electronics has a lucrative distribution agreement with Sirius, but renewing that agreement may be difficult when the contract expires if the proposed XM-Sirius merger passes.

Under the agreement with Sirius, Directed distributes Sirius receivers, tuners and other accessories - comprising over 90 percent of Sirius' aftermarket volume. The deal between Directed and Sirius is set to expire in April 2008.

On Wednesday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Scot Ciccarelli cautioned that Sirius' issues may weigh on Directed's share potential.

"We were already concerned about the pending expiration of Directed's contract with Sirius given our expectation for a more difficult negotiation, but the pending merger of the two satellite operators has magnified our concerns," wrote Ciccarelli in a client note.

"XM and Sirius will push hard to get this deal done and maximize cost synergies without significantly raising their monthly fees (a possible requirement for regulatory passage) which will likely squeeze their respective business partners – including Directed, in our view."

Ciccarelli said there are also worries about changing market conditions and the satellite radio model begins to move from a retail to an OEM driven model.

Directed has already warned that's its Sirius sales could be slowing, with sales of its satellite radio products expected to decline between 11% and 22% in 2007. The company acknowledged that retailers were left with 30 to 90 days of excess inventory of Sirius products, depending on the dealer, at the end of last year. But dealers are now supposedly working through that inventory and some are beginning to reorder in larger quantities.

[Forbes] 

Sirius is now available as standard equipment on the 2007 model year Range Rover and Supercharged Range Rover Sport. Add to that, Sirius will now be a factory installed option on the all-new LR2 that goes on sale here in the States next week.

This makes Sirius as either a factory-installed option, or as standard-equipment, on all Land Rover vehicles (including the LR2, the LR3, Range Rover Sport and the Range Rover).

"Land Rover is delighted to offer Sirius as a standard feature or a factory option on all of our vehicles in the US," said Richard Beattie, Executive Vice President of Marketing & Sales Land Rover North America. "Land Rover can take you anywhere and with Sirius you can listen to your radio wherever your Land Rover may take you."

Land Rover is part of the Ford Motor Company's Premium Auto Group (PAG) which includes Volvo, Jaguar and Aston Martin as well as Land Rover.

Clear Channel Radio and mobile entertainment provider mSpot have entered in a content agreement, allowing for music programming from ten Clear Channel stations to be heard on mSpot's radio services.

Clear Channel Radio is providing mSpot with Contemporary Hits Radio (CHR) and Urban programming from five of its most popular terrestrial stations: WHTZ (New York), WWPR (New York), KHHT (Los Angeles), WGCI (Chicago) and WMIB (Miami).

Spanish-language content from four Latin channels and a playlist of Hip-Hop hits (from Clear Channel Radio's Format Lab) also are now all available to mSpot subscribers commercial free.

If that's not bad enough, next month mSpot expects to distribute live broadcasts from almost 100 Clear Channel Radio stations.

"Wireless carriers, entertainment and media companies are working hard to make new and compelling content available to a variety of mobile phones," said mSpot CEO and co-founder Daren Tsui. "Radio programming is among the most requested mobile content, so we're thrilled to be able to offer Clear Channel Radio's top-rated and original music channels to mSpot users."

mSpot announced yesterday that they've reached 1 million subscribers since going live with their first service in 2005.

[via FMQB] 

Juan Pablo Montoya, former F1-turn-NASCAR driver, has signed a marketing and advertising pact with Sirius Satellite Radio to promote their NASCAR programming offering through various outlets.

Montoya had already signed with Sirius to host "The Juan Pablo Montoya Report" as part of the "Sirius Speedway" talk show on Sirius' NASCAR Radio (ch 128).

Montoya will be featured in Sirius' advertising and marketing efforts - obviously promoting NASCAR and Sirius' live NASCAR coverage - and will be included in an extensive promotional campaign at retail locations around the country.

"Barely a month into his first full season Juan Pablo has established himself as one of NASCAR's most intriguing personalities," said Scott Greenstein, Sirius' President, Entertainment & Sports. "With performances like his win in Mexico City and his top-five finish in Atlanta, he is capturing the attention of fans everywhere. We are very pleased he has chosen to affiliate himself with Sirius, both on our air and in our marketing efforts.

Montoya won the NASCAR Busch Series Telcel-Motorola 200 in Mexico City earlier this month, a controversial win as he had tried to make a pass on teammate Scott Pruett (which resulted in Pruett spinning out). Montoya also stirred the pot up a bit earlier this year when he called F1 champion Michael Schumacher a "nobody" after he questioned Montoya's move to NASCAR.

Is it a good move for Sirius to partner with Montoya? You betcha - there's nothing like controversy and excitement to help drive attention to a brand.

Yesterday it was reported that Sprint Nextel was dropping Sirius from the Vision and Power Vision plans. This is incorrect.

Sprint Nextel is simply dropping a single channel, but is retaining the full $6.95/month service. The relationship between the two services is fine and healthy.

The original RCRWireless News article indicated the "Sirius Hits streaming music service" was being dropped - which was the source of the confusion (who the hell calls a channel a "service"? oh well, no excuses). After further inquiry with Sirius I learned that it was indeed just one channel and not the entire service that was being affected, so I want to ensure that this is cleared up for everyone.

You may commence critiquing... now. 

Sirius Nextel told its customers in a billing insert that they're dropping the Sirius streaming music service for Vision and Power Vision data subscribers.

Sirius Music is apparently getting the boot in favor of 10 "genre-based channels" of mobile music.

UPDATE: More has been learned about this, read about it here.

Sprint Nextel will also be expanding their basic Sprint TV service with additional content from CNN, The Weather Channel, E!, NFL Network and Fox Sports.

A Sprint Nextel spokesman had nothing further to say other than what was already revealed in the billing insert.

If this is the case, it obviously won't have a major impact on subscribers (the act of Sprint dropping Sirius indicates that it was a less-than-stellar success... surprised?). But it was an important foothold for the future when mobile music gains acceptance by the masses.

[RCRWireless News via Sirius Uplink] 

Avis Rent A Car and Budget Rent A Car will be the first rental services to offer XM Canada.

Starting now, XM will be included in full-size, premium, vans and SUVs GM vehicles, at Avis and Budget locations throughout Canada.

These XM-equipped vehicles will be available at corporate-owned rental locations across Canada and by late spring, a significant portion of the GM fleet will have the XM Canada service package.

The XM Canada service is available free of charge.

[Press Release]