Billboard has announced an agreement with Sirius Satellite Radio to provide weekly music chart rankings and other information from the music industry.

Details surrounding chart-topping songs and albums will be featured on a variety of Sirius news and entertainment channels throughout the day, beginning tomorrow (Feb. 1).

This alliance with Sirius provides them all of Billboard's assets: content, charts and insights in the U.S. and global music scene.=

Sirius Satellite Radio will officially debut Maxim Radio in Jacksonville, Florida during Super Bowl week.

Maxim Radio is produced by Maxim magazine and Sirius Satellite Radio. Maxim Radio will be the irreverent guy-talk of Maxim magazine, with music, listener call-ins and guests from the worlds of music, sports and entertainment.

Hosted by Steve Covino and Rich Davis weekdays from Noon-4pm ET, Michael Bower weekdays from 4pm-8pm ET and Evan Roberts and Brian O'Leary weeknights from 8pm-Midnight ET. Maxim Radio's official debut will be on Saturday, February 5 at 8pm ET, Sirius Channel 145, live from "Maximony," this year's edition of Maxim magazine's famous annual Super Bowl party, in Jacksonville, Florida.

There's no question that Sirius has been spending a ton of loot lately, what with big salaries and half-billion dollar deals being thrown around. Yesterday's announcement about the big 4th Quarter Loss made the reality of the situation, only more real.

But a Daily News article points out that Mel has some big plans for advertising on Sirius. Right now, advertising at Sirius accounts only for less than $1 million of its $67 million in sales. But Karmazin said he's planning on beefing up Sirius' ad sales force, and predicted that ads will become a much bigger part of the business. The article seems to praise Mel for the move, and while it's a revenue stream that Sirius would definitely benefit from, I have to wonder about the possible underlying effects.

With big advertisers like Heineken, Snapple and Dial-A-Mattress supposedly in the works, how long will it be before the commericials leak out of the 55 talk and news stations and into all the other non-commericial radio stations? If Mel sees a need to boost revenue significantly, maybe he won't consider the subscription profits to be the cash cow, and instead sell out significant ad space to advertisers (much like magazine subscriptions).

Bottom line. Are we going to have to listen to 20-minutes of Dial-A-Mattress commercials all over again?? I hope not, but there may be no choice.

The New York Post is reporting that XM and Sirius are holding preliminary talks on a possible merger. No discussions about price yet, however, according to to the Post's sources they have discussed potential antitrust concerns.

XM and Sirius are hoping the Federal Communications Commission considers satellite radio as part of the broader industry of delivering music and other content through mobile devices, such as cellphones.

According to the Post, the fact that Mel got on board with Sirius gave a lift to discussions between the two merging.

The NY Post sources say the deal could be at least a year away.

CNN/Money also cover this story here.

UPDATE: According to the Billboard Radio Monitor, Mel is 'quashing' the Sirius-XM Merger.

Mel Karmazin characterized a New York Post report of a potential XM-Sirius merger as the ?third rumor? he has had to deal with in his first eight weeks as Sirius CEO.

He stated, ?I have not met with the [XM] chair or the CEO, so I have no idea where this [rumor] has come from.? Later adding, that he thought such a merger would be a ?difficult deal to get through,? when asked about potential antitrust restrictions for such a merger.

I'm not so sure if Mel's statement actually 'quashes' the merger rumors - he simply stated that he hasn't met with Hugh Panero. Whether or not talks have been initiated are still unknown for sure.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Chance Patterson, XM spokesperson, has made a statement about the merger rumors, "This is the same news organization that last fall reported on its cover Dick Gephardt was named John Kerry's running mate. So consider the source. We don't comment on rumors and speculation, which this clearly rates as."

(well said)

News.com reports that Audible just struck a deal with the NFL to offer recorded games on portable music players. Listeners will be able to download the entire broadcast, or selected highlights, the morning after the game and listen to them.

I wonder if it'll be narrated by Sirius announcers like NFL On Demand?

So Digital Fountain, the uber-geeks who have an awesome compression and broadcast encoding technology, just announced in a press release that they'll be licensing their "Meta-Content technology," known as Raptor, in upcoming products from Sirius. Over time, the two expect that Digital Fountain technology will be incorporated into all Sirius Satellite Radio receivers.

Glenn over at Droxy takes some issue with this move, wondering if it means that the previous deal between Digital Fountain and XM has been affected? Who knows, but unless it was an exclusive license, I don't see why Sirius and XM can't both use the same delivery technology. We know that Sirius will be using Microsoft's WMV 9 codec, and that XM is using On2 TrueMotion VP6.2 compression - so why couldn't the delivery technology be the same?

Trucker's rejoice! Freightliner Trucks is being a "good-buddy" and announced that it'll throw in one full year of Sirius satellite radio service with their vehicles equipped with a factory-installed Delphi stereo system.

Wake up the Lot Lizard and let her know.

Offer available for trucks built after Feb. 1, 2005.

Sirius Satellite Radio today announced at CES that it has selected Windows Media Video 9 for use in Sirius' mobile video platform (which was briefly mentioned during their NAVTEQ partnership announcement), and has reached an agreement with Microsoft to collaborate in the further development of video applications.

Sirius plans to offer a video service in the second half of 2006, and expects to devote 2-3 channels of premium video content designed primarily for children. With the explosive growth of DVD sales, video capabilities in automobiles are quickly becoming a prime feature for families and travelers. The automobile industry is increasingly interested in offering entertainment features to their new car buyers. According to Sirius, its automotive partners are eager proponents of the service, given the strong demand for rear seat video entertainment.

Ford Motor Company and Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Ford will begin offering Sirius as a factory installed option this summer. Ford is targeting the Sirius factory installed option for up to 21 vehicle lines.

Ford expects to generate up to one million Sirius subscribers over the 2006 and 2007 model year periods.

Each Ford and Lincoln Mercury vehicle sold with factory equipped Sirius will include a six-month or longer subscription.

Starting with the 2006 model year, Ford plans to offer factory installed Sirius on the F-150, Explorer, Lincoln Mark LT and Mercury Mountaineer vehicle lines.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio just announced that it ended 2004 with 1,143,258 million subscribers, exceeding its end-of-year target of 1 million subscribers.

Mel Karmazin, CEO of SIRIUS said,

"This strong finish underscores the momentum that we continue to see for our service... We believe that this enthusiasm will continue, and we expect to double our subscribers during 2005."

Impressive, that's a bold statement from Mel, but considering their rapid growth in subscriber base in the past few months, it may not be too far off. Our guess is that XM will either counter this announcement immediately with their exact year end number (of course, exceeding expectations) or they'll hold off until CES before releasing the exact amount.