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XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio say they have completed their merger.
The new company plans to change its name to Sirius XM Radio Inc. The combined company’s stock will continue to be traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SIRI.
The company says it now has more than 18.5 million subscribers. It expects cost savings from the deal of about $400 million in 2009.
All I want to know is… will I be able to listen to Sirius’ programming on XM now?
source: XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio say they have completed their merger [associated press]
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Bunny With Fangs! linked with Violet Afleck’s Artwork Brings The Links
Lindsay Lohan was being interviewed on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show and all but admitted that she was in a relationship with Samantha Ronson — Like we didn’t know.
[Hear Audio]
When asked about plans for the future, Lohan said the most important thing to her was,
“living a happy, healthy year” and “being with the person that I care about.”
In other Lohan news — It was a prom-themed party last night as Lindsay celebrated her 22nd birthday at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
The birthday girl rocked a pink chiffon minidress while her rumored fiancé Samantha Ronson wore a tuxedo.
Nicole Richie’s ex DJ AM provided the music and guests were said to have included mom Dina, sister Ali, Joel and Benji Madden, David Spade, Audrina Patridge, Sean Stewart and Evan Ross.
You know, I have nothing but good things to say about Lindsay and her relationship with Ronson. Lindsay has never looked happier and she’s staying out of trouble. Hope you had a happy birthday, Lindsay!
source: Lohan Lets Relationship Cat Out of the Bag [tmz]
Rush Limbaugh isn’t going to have any trouble affording good cigars, having just re-upped with Clear Channel through 2016 for $400 million, including a $100 million signing bonus. And you thought pro athetes got paid a lot.
Said to be Limbaugh’s most lucrative deal ever by far, the new agreement runs through 2016 and includes a previously unheard-of nine figure signing bonus. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means more than $100 million, upfront.
[...]
Beyond infuriating the left, that staggering sum is sure to reinforce the widespread industry belief that talk represents one of broadcast radio’s only remaining bright spots. While several other major outfits are struggling to survive, Limbaugh and Premiere have provided a steady revenue stream for Clear Channel.
In fact, while advertisers have begun to abandon music radio for the Internet and other media, Limbaugh has recently added sponsors.
Clearly, I’m in the wrong business. Then again, if I could captivate 20 million listeners three hours a day for a couple decades, I’m sure I’d make more, too.
We all knew it was just a matter of time, before Hulk Hogan had something to say about Linda Hogan’s new boytoy.
Aside from dating a boy who is younger than her own daughter, Linda’s allowing the teen to drive uninsured vehicles and ransack Nick’s room.
Hogan told radio host Bubba the Love Sponge that Linda Hogan’s younger-than-Brooke boyfriend, Charley Hill, is causing him all sorts of trouble — driving Hulk’s uninsured motorcycle, going through Nick’s stuff and being the cause for Linda to call the cops on him.
[Hear Audio]
Sounds like Linda has some growing up to do.
George Clooney might have a gazillion bucks in the bank but he’s apparently a union man through and through.
 In a two-page letter released Thursday, Clooney adopted a neutral stance in the dispute between the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild.
“What we can’t do is pit artist against artist,” he wrote.
AFTRA has already reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios. SAG wants AFTRA members to vote against the deal, saying its approval will handcuff SAG at the bargaining table. Both unions’ current contracts are set to expire Monday, leaving Hollywood on edge about a possible replay of the 100-day writers strike that ended in February. Results of the AFTRA vote are expected July 8.
Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and others have joined hundreds of actors in signing an online petition urging actors to ratify the AFTRA pact. Meanwhile, Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen and Holly Hunter have endorsed a SAG ad calling for AFTRA to return to the negotiating table to get a better deal.
Clooney called the fight counterproductive. “Because the one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power” of the studios, he said.
Clooney also called on higher-paid actors to chip in a greater share of union dues and for 10 A-listers — “people that the studio heads don’t often say ‘no’ to,” he suggested, listing only Nicholson and Hanks by name — to sit down with studio heads once a year to “adjust the pay for actors.”
The idea of millionaire actors unionizing, let alone going on strike, has always struck me as ludicrous. But Clooney’s instinct here is right: if they’re going to organize, the big money stars ought to take care of the little guys. It makes sense to have a system in place for the folks struggling for scale jobs trying to get regular employment. Not so much one that has the likes of Clooney and Hanks walking a picket line.
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Hot Momma Gossip linked with Hot Momma Gossip Weekday Links 06-30-08
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin fell in love at a time when lesbians risked being arrested, fired from their jobs and sent to electroshock treatment.
On Monday, more than a half-century after they became a couple, Lyon and Martin plan to become one of the first same-sex couples to legally exchange marriage vows in California.
“It was something you wanted to know, ‘Is it really going to happen?’ And now it’s happened, and maybe it can continue to happen,” Lyon said.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to officiate at the private ceremony in his City Hall office before 50 invited guests. He picked Martin, 87, and Lyon, 84, for the front of the line in recognition of their long relationship and their status as pioneers of the gay rights movement.
Along with six other women, they founded a San Francisco social club for lesbians in 1955 called the Daughters of Bilitis. Under their leadership, it evolved into the nation’s first lesbian advocacy organization. They have the FBI files to prove it.
Their ceremony Monday will, in fact, be a marriage do-over.
In February 2004, San Francisco’s new mayor decided to challenge California’s marriage laws by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. His advisers and gay rights activists knew right away which couple would put the most compelling human face on the issue: Martin and Lyon.
Back then, the couple planned to celebrate their 51st anniversary as live-in lovers on Valentine’s Day. Because of their work with the Daughters, they also were icons in the gay community.
“Four years ago, when they agreed to be married, it was in equal parts to support the mayor and to support the idea that lesbians and gay people formed committed relationships and should have those relationships respected,” says Kate Kendell, a close friend and executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Lyon and Martin vividly recall the excitement of being secretly swept into the clerk’s office, saying “I do” in front of a tiny group of city staff members and friends, and then being rushed out of the building. There were no corsages, no bottles of champagne. Afterward they went to lunch, just the two of them, at a restaurant run as a job training program for participants in a substance abuse program.
“Of course, nobody down there knew, so we were left to be by ourselves like we wanted to be,” said Martin, the less gregarious of the two. “Then we came home.”
“And watched TV,” adds Lyon.
The privacy was short-lived. Their wedding portrait, showing the couple cradling each other in pastel-colored pantsuits with their foreheads tenderly touching, drew worldwide attention.
Same-sex marriage would become legal in Massachusetts in another three months, but San Francisco’s calculated act of civil disobedience drove the debate.
In the month that followed, more than 4,000 other couples followed Martin and Lyon down the aisle before a judge acting on petitions brought by gay marriage opponents halted the city’s spree.
The state Supreme Court ultimately voided the unions, but the women were among the two dozen couples who served as plaintiffs in the lawsuits that led the same court last month to overturn California’s ban on gay marriage.
They were having their morning coffee when Lyon heard the news on the radio. She rushed across the house to embrace Martin. Not long after, Newsom called to offer congratulations and to ask if they would be willing to be at the forefront yet again.
“Sure,” was the answer they gave.
Touching.
source: Lesbian Couple of 55 Years to Marry [AP]
The voicemail threats made against Hulk Hogan and his family — calling Linda and Brooke Hogan “whores” and threatening to “piss on you and your family’s grave” — have been released.
Bubba the Love Sponge, radio host and Hogan family friend, played the messages allegedly made by John Granziano’s brother, Frank, on his show this morning. Clearwater PD states there is an “open investigation” into the calls.
source: Graziano Bro: Coming For Hulk [tmz]
Country star Sara Evans has married former University of Alabama quarterback Jay Barker, the AP reports.
Lori Genes, the singer’s publicist at Sony BMG Nashville, told The Associated Press on Monday that Evans and Barker had married but didn’t provide details of the wedding. People magazine reported on its Web site that the outdoor ceremony took place Saturday on a farm in Franklin, Tennessee.
The 37-year-old singer filed for divorce from Craig Schelske in October 2006 after 13 years of marriage. The divorce was completed last September.
Barker led Alabama to a national championship in 1992 and hosts a radio show in Birmingham.
I didn’t even know they were dating, to be honest. Then again, those of you who weren’t attending the University of Alabama or fans of its football team sixteen years ago, as I was, have likely never heard of Jay Barker.
Source: “Sara Evans has married former Alabama quarterback” (AP/YahooNews). Photos: CMT and Bumpshack
After word spread that Prince covered Radiohead’s “Creep” at the Coachella festival, the tens of thousands who couldn’t be there ran to YouTube for a peek. Everyone was quickly denied — even Radiohead.
All videos of Prince’s unique rendition of Radiohead’s early hit were quickly taken down, leaving only a message that his label, NPG Records, had removed the clips, claiming a copyright violation. But the posted videos were shot by fans and, obviously, the song isn’t Prince’s.
 In a recent interview, Thom Yorke said he heard about Prince’s performance from a text message and thought it was “hilarious.” Yorke laughed when his bandmate, guitarist Ed O’Brien, said the blocking had prevented even him from seeing Prince’s version of their song.
“Really? He’s blocked it?” asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. “Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment.” Yorke added, “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.”
YouTube prohibits the posting of copyrighted material. If the site receives a complaint from a copyright owner, it will in most cases remove the video(s). Whether the same could be done for a company not holding a copyright is less clear, but Yorke’s argument would seem to bear some credence according to YouTube’s policies. YouTube, which is owned by Google, declined to comment. Prince also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute was an interesting twist in debates over digital ownership, held between two major acts with differing views on music and the Internet. Radiohead famously released their most recent album, “In Rainbows,” as a digital download with optional pricing. They also have a channel on YouTube.
When Prince performed at Coachella on April 26, he prohibited the standard arrangement of allowing photographers to shoot near the stage during the first three songs of his set. Instead, he had a camera crew filming his performance.
Prince, who founded NPG Records in 1993, has been innovative when it comes to music distribution, too. He released his 1997 album, “Crystal Ball,” on the Internet and in 2006 was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Webbys. In 2007, he gave away copies of his disc “Planet Earth” in a British Sunday newspaper.
But the Purple One has also shut down his official Web site and last September said he would sue YouTube and eBay for not filtering unauthorized content.
Prince fans have organized to urge him to relent in his legal fights to control images and photographs of himself. As of yesterday, the most popular YouTube clip about Prince playing “Creep” is an expletive-laden rant from Sam Conti Jr., who describes himself as a “former Prince fan.”
Seems a bit overboard, doesn’t it? Did Prince even ask permission to cover the song in the first place?
Here’s Prince’s performance of Radiohead’s “Creep”. Let’s see if “his people” contact Daily Motion to have this clip removed.
source: Radiohead To Prince: Unblock ‘Creep’ YouTube Vids [billboard]
Convicted “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey railed against what she called a “modern-day lynching” in notes to her mother and sister before hanging herself at her mother’s Florida home, police disclosed Monday.
 Police in Tarpon Springs, Florida, released Palfrey’s suicide notes Monday, along with autopsy results confirming her cause of death as a suicide. Her mother and sister confirmed the notes’ authenticity, police said.
“I cannot live the next 6 to 8 years behind bars for what you and I have both come to regard as this ‘modern-day lynching’ only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman,” she wrote.
The front of the note was marked “Do not revive (DNR). Do not feed under any circumstance.”
Palfrey, 52, was convicted of money laundering, racketeering and mail fraud in April. She had been staying at her mother’s Tarpon Springs home while awaiting sentencing in July and told ABC News last year she would never return to prison after serving time in the 1990s for other prostitution-related charges.
“You must comprehend there was no way out, I.E. ‘exit strategy,’ for me other than the one I have chosen here,” Palfrey wrote in the note to her sister.
Palfrey released the telephone records of her business, Pamela Martin & Associates, to reporters as she awaited trial. Those records linked two high-profile officials to her firm — State Department official Randall Tobias, who resigned in May 2007 after confirming he patronized Palfrey’s business, and Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, who apologized last July for “a very serious sin in my past.”
Neither Tobias nor Vitter have faced charges in the case.
During her trial, Palfrey insisted she ran only a legal escort service — “Basically a bunch of benign women who want to make a living,” she told CNN in March. “This is not racketeering by any means — this is running a business.”
Palfrey was convicted April 15 in connection with a high-end prostitution ring catering to Washington’s elite. She was found guilty of money laundering, racketeering and mail fraud and faced a maximum 55-year prison term at her sentencing, scheduled for July 24.
She had said in interviews that she would kill herself before going to prison.
“I’m looking at 55 years in a federal penitentiary, and at my age, that is virtually a life sentence,” Palfrey told CNN Radio’s Ninette Sosa in March. “Realistically, we estimate between eight and 15 years. I’m also looking at the complete forfeiture of my entire life savings and work.”
She said in the interview that the government “went after me. They found out that I’m not who they thought I was, and instead of dropping the whole matter, they decided to press forward and — what the heck — she’s a woman, she’s weak. We’ll intimidate her, we’ll humiliate her, we’ll pounce on this poor lady and she’ll give in.”
Palfrey also told writer Dan Moldea, who was helping her write a book, that she would commit suicide rather than return to jail, according to Time magazine.
Suicide is never the answer, never.
source: D.C. Madam: ‘There was no way out’ [cnn]
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