SIRIUS Satellite Radio chairman Joe Clayton said the company would love to bring Howard Stern on board before Stern's contract with Infinity Broadcasting ends in 2005, but avoided giving any indication whether the company is in talks with Infinity to buy out the remainder of Stern's contract. "If it's in Infinity's best interest and in Sirius' best interest, perhaps something could evolve. But that's a lot of moving parts and there's nothing more to report on that," he said.

Clayton, stepped down from the chief executive post last month to make way for former Viacom chief operating officer Mel Karmazin.

He's not really saying anything new to us, but what we did learn from Clayton's little chat at the Credit Suisse First Boston conference is that in the second half of next year, Sirius plans to launch new receiver units from STMicroelectronics and is also planning to unveil a wearable device at that time. Time-shifting, and portability are major goals for 2005.

ST sells to manufacturers in the telecommunications, computer, consumer electronics, industrial, and automotive markets. (ST chips are in half of all cars on the road.) Top clients include Nokia, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Scientific-Atlanta, and Sony.