The day-long tribute to Frank Sinatra on the 10th anniversary of his passing will feature a special edition of Nancy for Frank, hosted by Nancy Sinatra and her daughter, A.J. Lambert, which will start at 1 pm ET. Frank Sinatra, Jr. will host As I Remember It, a personal retrospective on his father starting at 4 pm ET.

SIRIUS will start the broadcast event at 9 am ET with the premiere of a new “Live in Vegas” edition of The Chairman’s Hour, Siriusly Sinatra’s unique and innovative weekly show hosted by Frank Sinatra himself through the use of archival materials.

SIRIUS will broadcast the classic 1966 “Sinatra at the Sands” performance accompanied by the Count Basie Orchestra at 8 pm ET. Other exclusive programming includes Playing Favorites, with guest hosts Linda Ronstadt and Michael Feinstein, each playing their favorite Sinatra songs and sharing stories respectively at 10 am and 10 pm ET.

SIRIUS will also broadcast a 90-minute program featuring interviews and commentary on Nothing but the Best, a new collection of essential tracks from the Frank Sinatra songbook, including remastered favorites like “Strangers in the Night,” “Summer Wind,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “My Kind Of Town,” plus many more songs. Sirius will feature the only coast-to-coast broadcast of this special edition program at 11 am and rebroadcast at 6 pm ET. Nothing but the Best will be available for sale on May 13th. For encore and up-to-date programming information, please visit www.sirius.com/siriuslysinatra.

The United States Postal Service will immortalize Sinatra with a commemorative stamp on May 13, 2008. In a career studded with accolades, Sinatra won an Academy Award®, several Grammy® awards, received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1971, and was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983. Sinatra also gave generously to many charities. He was born in Hoboken, NJ, on December 12, 1915 and died on May 14, 1998.

Siriusly Sinatra, is the only 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, commercial-free channel to broadcast the entire spectrum of Sinatra’s career as well as artists and songs from the standards era. Produced by SIRIUS and the Sinatra family, the channel features regular blocks of Sinatra’s music, archival performances and is the home of Nancy for Frank, a weekly show hosted by his daughter, Nancy Sinatra.

“A Conversation with… Neil Diamond” will premiere on Neil Diamond Radio on SIRIUS channel 3, tomorrow, May 9th at 5 pm. Additional encores will air on Mother’s Day, May 11th at 12 noon, 6 pm and 9 pm, and Monday, May 12th at 9 am and 3 pm (all times Eastern). For more information, please visit www.sirius.com.

During the interview, Diamond will discuss his work with producer Rick Rubin on his latest album, Home Before Dark. He will also talk about growing up in Brooklyn, getting his first guitar and classic songs such as “I Am… I Said” and new songs from his latest album.

The Neil Diamond Radio channel on SIRIUS launched on May 2, 2008 for a limited engagement, offering non-stop Neil Diamond music and stories from a career spanning four decades.

In addition to his own SIRIUS channel and new album release, Diamond will also return to concert stages this summer for a 37-city North American tour starting in July. For tour dates and more information about Diamond’s new album, Home Before Dark, go to www.neildiamond.com.

BBC Radio 1, the U.K.’s legendary music station, will also go behind the scenes during the entire weekend of May 10 to provide SIRIUS listeners with backstagegossip, news, performance highlights and interviews with this year’s performers, including Usher, Nelly, The Raconteurs, Fatboy Slim, Duffy, Adele, Editors and others.

Listen in on SIRIUS channel 11, BBC Radio 1, Saturday, May 10 and Sunday, May 11 from 12 pm –11 pm ET

Madonna’s live performance scheduled to air on Saturday, May 10 at 9:15 pm ET

Mary Crosby, Bing’s daughter, hosts and offers a bit of insight into her Dad’s 30-plus years of radio as she introduces a number of Bing’s programs. These vintage treasures include guests Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Jolson, Peggy Lee, and Bob Hope.

Tune in and help celebrate Bing’s 105th!

For more information on Bing Crosby please visit www.BingCrosby.com.

*Bing’s special day has always been celebrated a day early due to a long-standing family tradition. His younger sister’s birthday was ALSO May 3, so to give his sister her own ’special day’, Bing’s was traditionally celebrated on May 2. Following Bing’s lead, RadioClassics will celebrate his birthday May 2nd.

“Neil Diamond Radio” will premiere in advance of new Neil Diamond studio album “Home Before Dark”

SIRIUS announced today that legendary singer-songwriter Neil Diamond will host an exclusive music channel for two weeks starting tomorrow, May 2nd, at 12 noon ET on SIRIUS channel 3.

“Neil Diamond Radio” will feature Neil Diamond music 24/7, spanning four decades, including a preview of songs from Diamond’s highly anticipated new album, Home Before Dark, being released on May 6th.

The limited engagement channel will also feature stories and insights from Neil about the many classic songs that have defined his iconic career, as well as his new Rick Rubin-produced album.

“Neil Diamond is the quintessential songwriter, recording artist and performer with an endless catalog of memorable hits,” said Scott Greenstein, SIRIUS President of Entertainment and Sports. ”We are thrilled to launch ‘Neil Diamond Radio’ and offer SIRIUS subscribers the ultimate Neil Diamond listening experience.”

In addition to his own SIRIUS channel and new album release, Diamond will also return to concert stages this summer for a 37-city North American tour starting in July. For tour dates and more information about Diamond’s new album Home Before Dark go to www.neildiamond.com.

With a four-decade long career that has seen more than 125 million records sold worldwide, 36 Top 40 hits, a Grammy®, a Golden Globe® and thousands of sold-out shows all over the globe, Neil Diamond remains one of the most vital and innovative forces in modern music.

Diamond’s prolific body of work includes “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (the powerful duet with Barbra Streisand), “I Am, I Said” and “Cracklin’ Rosie,” as well as hits from his album and movie The Jazz Singer (“America,” “Love on the Rocks”) and from his acclaimed 2005 album 12 Songs. The album marked his first project with Rubin, which entered the Billboard Top 200 at No. 4 – marking Diamond’s highest-charting debut to date – and offered a stripped-down, emotionally honest and passionately compelling approach that continues on Home Before Dark.

Neil Diamond Radio continues SIRIUS’ tradition of creating exclusive artist branded channels dedicated to iconic figures at the top of their game. Recent limited engagement artist channels heard exclusively on SIRIUS include Rolling Stone Radio, Garth Brooks Radio, Radio R.E.M., Jay-Z Nation, Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Radio, among many others.

The first condition would be to hold the merged company to it’s proposed pricing models.

The second is that they open up manufacture of their radios.

They do NOT take a position on whether the merger should be approved. More details here.

Ferrall to host special live broadcast from NFL Draft Fan Central in midtown Manhattan this Saturday April 26.

SIRIUS today announced that it has entered into an agreement with colorful sports talk personality Scott Ferrall to continue to host The Scott Ferrall Show, a live weeknight sports call-in show.

The Scott Ferrall Show airs live Monday-Friday from 8:00 pm – 12:00 am ET on Howard 101, one of Howard Stern’s two exclusive SIRIUS channels.

“Scott Ferrall thunders through the world of sports at a hundred miles an hour every weeknight on SIRIUS, telling it like it is and letting his fans do the same,” said Scott Greenstein, SIRIUS’ President, Entertainment and Sports. “He remains the perfect fit for the Howard Stern channels.”

“I work for Howard Stern, ‘The King of all Media,’ and SIRIUS Satellite Radio,” said Scott Ferrall. “I couldn’t walk away from the revolution - it’s too much fun.”

On Saturday, April 26 Ferrall will host a special live broadcast from NFL Draft Fan Central outside Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan. This one-time show will air from 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET on Howard 101 and will feature Ferrall in front of a live audience talking directly to fans in attendance as the 2008 NFL Draft kicks off.

This weekend Ferrall makes his feature film debut in Redbelt, the mixed martial arts drama written and directed by David Mamet. In the Sony Pictures Classics movie Ferrall plays himself, an opinionated sports broadcaster. Redbelt premieres Friday, April 25 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

Known for his no holds barred style of broadcasting, Ferrall has been a fixture in the world of sports and talk radio for almost 20 years. He has hosted numerous radio shows on a wide variety of stations in both local and national markets.

The live performance on SIRIUS’ 24/7 hip-hop channel Hip-Hop Nation will be hosted by DJ Green Lantern with special guest Grammy Award winning DJ Premier on the turntables.

Tune in to the Hip-Hop Nation, SIRIUS channel 40, on Monday, April 28 at 9:00 pm ET.

As he writes here,  

1) big names stay and to listen to some of them you’ll pay more than “basic”
2) little weird stations might not stay or if they do will with staffing cuts
3) I don’t think there will be any programming duplication and Mel can be a loyal guy so if there is a choice XM staff gets cut
3) new hardware is coming soon, very very soon
4) the NAB will fight it all the way (and lose)
5) the very under the radar Sirius Backseat TV service will expand quickly

Now, I think he’s underplaying the pricing changes that will be favorable to many consumers, like the “Mostly Music” choice, but I encourage you to check out his post.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR) today announced that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has informed the companies that it has ended its investigation into the pending merger of SIRIUS and XM without taking action to block the transaction. This decision means the DOJ has concluded that the merger is not anti-competitive and it will allow the transaction to proceed. SIRIUS and XM each obtained stockholder approval in November 2007. The pending merger is still subject to approval of the Federal Communications Commission.

Here’s the DoJ’s spin…http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/March/08_at_226.html

The Division’s investigation indicated that the parties are not likely to compete with respect to many segments of the satellite radio business even in the absence of the merger. Because customers must acquire equipment that is specialized to the satellite radio service to which they subscribe, and which cannot receive the other provider’s signal, there has never been significant competition for customers who have already subscribed to one or the other service. For potential new subscribers, past competition has resulted in XM and Sirius entering long-term, sole-source contracts that provide incentives to all of the major auto manufacturers to install their radios in new vehicles. The car manufacturer channel accounts for a large and growing share of all satellite radio sales; yet, as a result of these contracts, there is not likely to be significant further competition between the parties for satellite radio equipment and service sold through this channel for many years. In the retail channel, where the parties likely would continue to compete to attract new subscribers absent the merger, the Division found that the evidence did not support defining a market limited to the two satellite radio firms that would exclude various alternative sources for audio entertainment, and similarly did not establish that the combined firm could profitably sustain an increased price to satellite radio consumers. Substantial cost savings likely to flow from the transaction also undermined any inference of competitive harm. Finally, the likely evolution of technology in the future, including the expected introduction in the next several years of mobile broadband Internet devices, made it even more unlikely that the transaction would harm consumers in the longer term. Accordingly, the Division has closed its investigation of the proposed merger.