Gearfuse

Woohoo! Maybe now my shares of Sirius-XM will actually gain a little on this news. But yeah! Apple FINALLY released the Sirius-XM iPhone app today and it comes with a few surprises that subscribers will gladly welcome. The big kahuna is that you can stream satellite radio over 3G, turning your iPhone into the ultimate portable radio. It also sports an easy-to-use killer interface. Want to try it out? There’s a 7-day trial going down right now. Hop on it.

UPDATE: No Stern, MLB or NFL. Big mistake.

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The AP is reporting that Liberty Media, who had previously expressed interest in Sirius-XM, has signed a deal where it’ll invest $350 million in the failing satellite radio company. This comes right in the nick of time; Sirius had $175 million in bond payments due today, which would have no doubt sent the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Instead, Liberty Media is going to get 12.5 million shares of convertible preferred stock, worth about 40 percent of the company’s common stock. Additionally, two seats on the board will go to Liberty Media, giving it quite a bit of control over the company.

As for current CEO Mel Karmazin, it’s only a matter of time before he’s outta there. Since the merger between Sirius and XM, Karmazin has failed to have the company turn a profit, leading to a lack of investor confidence and a couple close scares. Let’s hope that Liberty Media can stop Sirius-XM from bleeding cash; especially from that $500 million Howard Stern deal. Shareholders, you can breathe a little easier today.

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The New York Times tends to be a pretty reputable news source. So when I read last night that XM-Sirius Satellite Radio is probably going to file for bankruptcy, I felt like absolute shit. Why? Because I recently bought some shares of the company hoping it’d recover by 2011. Apparently CEO Mel Karmazin just can’t get the company to turn a profit and the debt is piling up. Combined with pissed off shareholders like myself who are fuming over a botched EchoStar sale, XM-Sirius is probably going to go under in the next two years.

The company is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy soon. R.I.P. XM-Sirius.

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Whether you’re a Sirius XM radio subscriber or not, maybe you’ve heard it’s dropped the punk channels. Subscribers are outraged at the fact that XM Fungus and Sirius Punk were dropped, replaced by an AC/DC channel. That’s AC/DC, all day, everyday. AC/DC? They only have, like, 17 albums.

Why wouldn’t Sirius XM replace every punk band in existence with a band like Rush? At least Rush has 18 albums. What Sirius XM is trying to say is, it doesn’t like punk and it doesn’t appreciate its punk subscribers. Attempting to raise your concerns to Sirius XM will only result in a run-around reply. It appears Sirius XM has closed the door on punk music. That’s so not punk. Evan Dorkin would not be pleased.

Sirius XM says punk is dead. Sign the petition if you disagree.

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With all that FCC brouhaha out of the way, XM and Sirius were able to move forward with their plans for a merger. Announced today, the new name of the combined companies will be Sirius XM Radio Inc. Boring as hell, right? No matter. There’s some major firepower behind this new company. It’ll be “the second largest radio company based on revenue and the second largest subscription media business in the U.S.” Now that’s power.

If you’ve got money to spend in a shit recession, the new stock ticker symbol will be SIRI. I believe Sirius gave XM shareholders $4.57 billion worth of stock total, so if you were holding onto some XM stock, you’re probably doing a little better right now.

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I don’t know what you did to piss Sirius Satellite Radio off. Maybe you forgot to pay your bill a month? Perhaps you told them to “piss off” when they offered you a hardware upgrade? Whatever you did, they just got us back real nicely.

Sirius is debuting ABBA Radio. God help us. At least it doesn’t launch until July 7th.

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XM and Sirius near merger deal [ABC News]