When I asked Sirius whether I could have a tour of Sirius Headquarters in NYC, I have to be honest that I was pretty much expecting a "thanks, but no thanks" response. Afterall, let's be honest, most bloggers really don't get the attention from corporations that say, USA Today would.

But it seems that the times are changing because rather than getting blown off, I immediately got a very open invite and the experience only got better from there.

Anthrax (no, not the disease, the band!) is going to hold a press conference at SIRIUS Satellite Radio's national broadcast center tomorrow at 2pm. They're planning to announce their reunion, new music releases and future plans for the band. Also supposed to talk about their support for Slave To The Metal Foundation's fight against misuse of heavy metals and proposed mandatory anthrax vaccine testing on soldiers and civilians.

The Press conference will be hosted by SIRIUS metal guru Jos? Mangin and will be broadcast live on SIRIUS Hard Attack 27, immediately followed by the "Spreading the Anthrax" weekend-long Anthrax music special on Hard Attack.

A reader at The Gripe Line Weblog had paid $499 for Sirius' lifetime subscription, recently discovered that he would need to pay an additional $75 to transfer the subscription from one satellite radio to another.

See, the "lifetime" agreement isn't for the customer's lifetime, but rather for that of the radio. For the record, this is clearly pointed out on Sirius' site in the promotional text:

Subscribe for the lifetime of your radio! Yes really, we're not kidding. Pay $499.99 once, forget about bills altogether, and enjoy SIRIUS for a long, long time to come. (Offer ends June 30, 2005.)

And paragraph 5 (C)(4) of their terms and conditions:

Transfer Fee: If you wish to transfer your Subscription to a different Sirius Receiver during the term of a prepaid subscription or committed subscription period, we may charge you a transfer fee of up to $75.00. You may not transfer a lifetime Subscription to a different Sirius Receiver.

So you really can't fault them for not being upfront about it. But you have to wonder, as guru-of-all-gurus Seth Godin points out, why would you want to alienate the highest spending (and thus the most loyal) customers? Lifestyle subscribers are stuck with old technology while their monthly friends enjoy the latest and greatest in gadgets?

Doesn't make sense.

Land Rover plans to offer SIRIUS as a factory-installed option on the 2006 Model Year Range Rover and Range Rover Sport in July of this year.

Both vehicles will come with factory-installed head units that display artist, song title and category when playing SIRIUS.

The Range Rover will also feature a touch-screen interface. Saweet.

Damn, big day. Just got word that Jaguar plans to offer SIRIUS as a dealer-installed accessory in the following 2005 model year vehicle lines beginning this May:

* 2005 X-Type
* 2005 X-Type Wagon
* 2005 S-Type
* 2005 XJ Sedan

Jaguar is additionally planning to offer SIRIUS as a port-installed option on the same models for the 2006 model year in the near future.

Pricing will be made available at a later date.

And the hits keep on coming.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio will be offered as a factory-installed option on the next-generation 2006 Mercedes-Benz M-Class Sports Utility vehicle. The factory-installed SIRIUS option will be available beginning next month.

Mercedes also plans to offer SIRIUS as a factory-installed option on six additional 2006 model year vehicles later this year and four 2007 model year vehicles next year.

The SIRIUS factory-installed option on the M-Class will include a 6-month bundled subscription and is expected to have a manufacturers suggested retail price of $500.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio will soon provide a full suite of marine weather content for a new service expected to begin late this year. This special marine weather service that will include a variety of graphical and text information, including water surface temperatures, lightning strikes, coast-to-coast U.S. and Canadian weather radar, storm tracking, winds and wave heights.

This new marine data service is provided by the WSI Corporation, a leading provider of weather-driven solutions. The new service will be the first premium SIRIUS data service.

How much? Don't know yet, pricing will be announced later this year.

Liz Berger, former VP of Publicity at Miramax Films, has been appointed to Senior Director of Communications at SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Berger is responsible for handling entertainment publicity for the company's music, entertainment and talk programming and reports to Patrick Reilly, SIRIUS Senior Vice President of Communications.

During her six years at Miramax, she served as Vice President of Publicity at Miramax Films, where she was responsible for planning and implementing national publicity campaigns for their feature films.

Prior to Miramax Films, Berger worked at MPRM Public Relations where she worked on many independent films, represented films at film festivals and served as a unit publicist.

To recognize underappreciated gay media pioneers - openly gay personalities who opened the doors for Bravo's Fab Five and Boy Meets Boy, and NBC's Will & Grace - SIRIUS Satellite Radio host Frank DeCaro has established The fraank Media Awards. The Frank DeCaro Show, the comedy talk fest which just celebrated its first anniversary, is heard from 11 am to 2 pm ET on SIRIUS OutQ, the nation's first and only full-time radio service created for the gay / lesbian / bisexual / transgendered community.

Sponsored by his foundation, fraank (Fags Recognizing Artists Actually Needing Kudos), The fraank Media Awards will pay tribute to media figures that other gay organizations have been glad to overlook in the past.

Nominees include such undervalued gay media personalities as Food Network host Bobby Rivers, E! Entertainment Television style guru Robert Verdi, Village Voice columnist Michael Musto and Lady Bunny, founder of the annual drag event Wigstock.

Sirius Satellite Radio will host an exclusive interview with former Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant with host Carol Miller on Sirius channels The Spectrum Channel 18 and Classic Vinyl Channel 14.

Robert Plant will discuss his excitement in creating his first album of new, original material in 12 years with his band The Strange Sensation, and talks about the meaning of its title, Mighty Rearranger, and more in this in-depth, exclusive interview.

The album is due May 10th from Sanctuary Records.

You can listen to the interview on Sunday (March 13) or Monday (March 14) at 12 pm ET on The Spectrum (18), and Monday, March 14 at 9 pm ET on Classic Vinyl (14).