News bits for this Friday the 13th (Oooo):

• Oprah and Bono promote a new line of products to raise money to fight AIDS in Africa. Includes a special-edition red iPod, and Moto's got a red RAZR/SLVR... no red Inno though. [AP]
• Rumor: Dr. Phil to strap on the headphones and get his own radio show. Supposedly his son is on-board as well. The Dr. Phil show is produced by Harpo Studios. [Radio & Records]
• Affluent women with incomes of $75k+ are growing. They tend to use the Internet a heck of a lot more than average adults, but at the expense of other media. What happens when you combine Radio + the Internet? [Radio Ink]
• CNET CEO Shelby Bonnie resigned after stock options investigation. John Mohn has been named the non-executive chairman along with Neil Ashe as the new CEO. Mohn is on XM Satellite Radio's Board of Directors. [paidContent]
  
• The rumors were true, Air America Radio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [NY Times]
• HD Radio's get a rebate discount of $25-$50 off. Still won't bring them to the "right price" to spur adoption (psst, the right price is "free"). [FMQB]

Forgetting about any fancy monikers, here's the news bits for October 11, 2006:

• Howard Stern is the most searched talk personality online, according to Lycos. I don't doubt that Stern is popular online, I just doubt any search data based on Lycos results. [Press Release]
• Sirius Canada asks the CRTC for a license change. They'd rather pay Canadian talent in advance rather than 5% annually. [Digital Home Canada]
• Arbitron sues The Media Audio and Ipsos over patent infringement. Arbitron says they've been developing the PPM for 15 years, and they "will work aggresively" to protect it. [FMQB]
• The Fool thinks XM got it right with its fall marketing push. I tend to agree, all the elements are there, I just would like to see more of the "wow factor." [Motley Fool]

Remember when Orbitcast featured a "Daily Links" segment? Well, as you can probably tell, that "daily" thing sort of lost momentum. Instead, it's being replaced by something I lovingly call "Signal vs. Noise" - essentially the same thing of interesting news bits and links - just without that "daily" dark cloud looming over me.

So let's begin:

• Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that over 1,000 people will ultimately work on their contextual radio advertising efforts. The idea: Let a marketer allocate an ad budget across multiple platforms, either in an automated manner or by targeting times and regions. [Forbes]
• Bank of America Analyst Jonathan Jacoby is reporting that HD Radio is suffering from first-generation equipment/software failures. I say we demand a recall.
  
• Motorola iRadio debuts Public Radio content. NPR, American Public Media and Public Radio International (PRI) are all providing content on Motorola's iRadio service now. [I4U]
• Gizmodo gives us an update on the Crosley Explorer 1 first seen in January. Updates include the use of the XM Mini-tuner and a price drop from the initial $399 pricetag to a mere $249. Bargin. [Gizmodo] (Thanks WirelessDJ!)