In response to the NAB taking out an ad quoting their own paid advocates' statements, here's my own faux print ad, highlighting the NAB's own contradictory statements about "competition" in the audio market.

I've always felt that XM never did enough when it came to promoting MLB, but recently it seems that things are turning around. They did some great on-site promotions at last year's World Series (and around the same time featured a baseball themed commercial). Then recently they've launched another sports-themed TV spot with some versions highlighting their baseball coverage.

And now they've launched a great viral campaign entitled "Call Stars."

Essentially you pick one of three Major League Baseball players and go through some steps for personalization, and you can have a custom message sent to a friend (or enemy) from your selected player. So Derek Jeter, David Ortiz or Cal Ripkin Jr can each call your friend (Ortiz can call in either English or Spanish). My personal favorite is Ortiz, but they're pretty hilarious - especially to baseball fans. You might have seen a similar campaign for the "Snakes on a Plane" movie. I had the opportunity to preview Call Stars last week, and it's only gotten better since.

One neat thing to point out: the custom voice message can be sent either by phone, by AOL Instant Messenger, or via Email. If you elect the phone message, it'll only call during daytime hours so your buddy doesn't get a call from Derek Jeter at 3am in the morning.

Definitely worth checking out. Go play with Call Stars here. 

Check out this new TV spot by XM. One thing I like about it is while it's generally sports-themed, XM gives special attention to baseball specifically (as they should). So they're appealing to all sports fans, but targeting the MLB fan. Nice.

This TV commercial is currently running during MLB games on Fox, ESPN, and DirecTV, as well as ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" and other sports programs.

I dig it.