It's always stinks when you have a typo, especially when it's on a printed piece. And it especially stinks when it's your phone number.

Like when XM Satellite Radio recently sent out 78,000 postcards asking subscribers to update their billing information... only to realize the number was off by one-digit. (doh!)

Unfortunately, the wrong number goes to a small business, who with only 8 employees fielded over 1,200 calls on Friday alone. And since it was sent out via a 3rd party, the calls may continue for another 2 weeks. 

[Times-Standard Online] 

In Forbes today, Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck noted that XM's website peaked around Father's Day at levels "significantly higher" than average, indicating a possible increase in interest around the holiday. By contrast, Sirius Satellite Radio's traffic stayed within the average range - spiking after Father's Day.

Curious. This peaked my interest. So I embarked onto good ol' Alexa to get a clearer picture:

Here's the Alexa graph showing the past month's worth of reach trending. I say "trending" because Alexa is great to determine exactly that - it's not an absolute measurement. Anyway.

So xmradio.com saw a significant spike in traffic just before Father's Day, yet sirius.com saw a spike after Father's Day. This could be translated in different ways as the post-Father's Day traffic could very well be from online activations (a good sign for Sirius). While the pre-Father's Day traffic for XM could be an indication that their TV spot made a difference. Ohh the speculation.

Whatever the causes, I'm pretty much convinced that the post-Father's Day traffic is from activations or from new subscribers checking out the service. Good news since this period is so important for consumer electronics sales.

But there's one thing that doesn't add up... Stern started streaming just before Father's Day.

Well well, looks like Willie's Place is going to XM afterall. XM Satellite Radio just announced that country music legend Willie Nelson will join XM, to launch "Willie's Place" (XM 13), formally known as "Hank's Place."

In his new role, Nelson will provide creative direction for the channel, as well as contribute exclusive programming to "Willie's Place" and other XM music channels.

"Willie's Place" will begin broadcasting July 10.

In addition to changing the channel name, XM is building new studios for "Willie's Place" in Carl's Corner, TX, located in the Willie Nelson's BioDiesel Truck Stop. "Willie's Place" will begin broadcasting live from Carl's Corner in 2007.

Willie Nelson is very popular with truckers (a key community for satellite radio). Peter Bell, a Texas biodiesel supplier said it perfectly to Wired News:

"What Willie brings to this is the ability to communicate directly with a truck driver. That kind of community is hard for people to get to. When he starts talking, these folks really listen to him.... It's like having Tiger Woods talk about golf clubs."

XM Satellite Radio has inked a deal with the National Press Club to launch From the National Press Club - a news and current events program.

The hour-long, weekly show will feature broadcasts from international and national guest speakers, high-profile press conferences and other "newsworthy" events taking place at the National Press Club.

The show will debut on Saturday, July 1st @ 9pm ET on XM Public Radio (ch 133). The debut episode will feature remarks from special guest Vice President Dick Cheney made at the annual Gerald R. Ford Foundation's Journalism Awards luncheon.

[Press Release]

This is pretty interesting. An article in today's Washington Times highlights the draw to Bob Dylan's show on XM Satellite Radio:

Rock legend Bob Dylan draws about 1.7 million listeners on XM Satellite Radio, making his weekly show one of the most popular that the subscription service offers, said XM President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh Panero.

Washington-based XM has more than 6 million subscribers. Mr. Panero would not tell us which programs draw the biggest audience on a daily basis, but he did say that "The Opie & Anthony Show," along with XM's comedy and news channels, tend to be the most popular.

Now, neither XM or SIRIUS expose the number of listeners for each of their channels. It's unfortunate because us fanboys would love to sit there and pick over any of these numbers - but then again, it's competitive intelligence. As long as no one is talking, why show your hand? (It would also serve as great market research for terrestrial radio.)

But XM has shown us a glimpse, here's the breakdown:

Total number of XM Radio Listeners* - 13.6 million
XM's The '70s - 2.1 million listeners
XM's The '80s - 1.9 million listeners
XM's 20-on-20 - 1.8 million listeners

* Yes, "listeners" are different than "subscribers" 

So... after seeing those numbers, knowing that Theme Time Radio Hour is bringing in about 1.7 million XM listeners is pretty damn impressive indeed.

[Washington Times] 

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has added the "baseball" episode from Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour music show on XM Satellite Radio, to its archive.

The one-hour episode contains Dylan singing an a cappella rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," along with classic baseball calls, such as Curt Gowdy's legendary call of Ted Williams' home run in his final at-bat with the Boston Red Sox, and baseball original compositions, such as Buddy Johnson's "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball" and "The Ball Game" by Sister Wynona Carr, among others.

The CD will be added to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library archive, which features more than 10,000 hours of recorded audio and video, and will be available for researchers to access.

Here's a phenominal feature of Hugh Panero in the New York Times' "The Boss" (a weekly column featuring a first-person account by a corporate leader). It's extremely humanizing and has some incredibly personal information that I don't think has ever been published before.

It's truly a great read. View it here. (PDF) 

This is an old article about the Sirius and XM merger

Orbitcast has been relentlessly covering the satellite radio merger since the rumors began in early 2005. If you're researching the Sirius/XM merger, you may want to check the Merger tag, or the Merger Category which will give you a comprehensive listing of all articles involving the proceedings.

For the latest news, information and rumors on the Sirius-XM merger, just keep checking Orbitcast, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Below is the archived article...

Reuters reports: SIRIUS Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin said today at a conference in New York that Sirius is definitely not up for sale. But when inevitably asked the question about an XM and SIRIUS merger, he had this to say:

"Regarding XM - would we like to buy them? Sure. We'd love to buy them. Price would matter, so that would be an issue ... (and) there would definitely be the regulatory issue," said Karmazin.

Mel was very clear about one thing regarding mergers, "If we do another deal, I'm gone." Referring to the stuggles he had with Summer Redstone after the CBS/Viacom merger.

It sure is headline material. "XM and SIRIUS merger?" Stuff that newspapers lap up. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I'm against the idea. I've put together a list of 5 reasons why I think XM and SIRIUS should not merge after the jump...

I'm not really sure if this is a big deal or not, but it appears that Audiovox has pulled all their satellite radios from their website. That includes both Sirius and XM units.

If you go to Audiovox's website and do a model number search on "sir" (for Sirius) or "xm" (for, uhm, XM) you'll find a few antennas, boomboxes, adapters, etc - but no plug-and-play receivers or anything manufactured by Audiovox. The Audiovox satellite radio landing page shows nothing either.

Very odd.

[Audiovox: Satellite Radios]

UPDATE: If you look at the archived version of Audiovox's website, you'll notice that both "Sirius Satellite Radio" and "XM Satellite Radio" are listed in the navbar under the MOBILE section. These are no longer there. 

 
XM Satellite Radio will be featuring special Superman programming this week just as the movie Superman Returns is arriving in theaters across the country.

The cast of the movie, including Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Brandon Routh, Parker Posey and others, will descend upon Ethel (XM 47) this Wednesday starting at noon (Eastern) and continuing all day.

The director of Superman Returns, Bryan Singer, will appear on Cinemagic (XM 27) starting on Monday @ 2pm ET to talk about his latest project with Dave Z on Reel Time. They'll discuss the evolution of the project, the difficulties of writing a script on a superhero who is virtually indestructable, and the amazing score from composer John Ottman. Encores will be replayed all week.

Speaking of John Ottman, also on Cinemagic, the movie's composer will discuss the music behind the Superman Returns starting on Wednesday at Midnight ET and lasting all day long. Every hour will feature a cue with liner notes from Ottman and background behind each cue.

And then on Radio Classics (XM 164) tune in for a Man of Steel Marathon. Before he hit the big screen, Superman was a radio star and Radio Classics will feature the entire old time radio storyline that originally aired over a two week span in February 1948. 

Check out the full schedule here.