by Bruce Simmons

In case you didn’t know, SIRIUS Satellite is broadcasting from the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Champions Week from New York City.

Matt Yocum, the co-host of “Tony Stewart Live” will be broadcasting from the 20 car as the top 10 drivers in the Nextel Cup points standings drive their cars through Manhattan.

The Morning Drive will be broadcasting from the Hard Rock Café in Times Square from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. EST on Wednesday. (Marty Snider and David Poole have all the fun!)

On Thursday, “Sirius Speedway” will broadcast from the Aflac Fan Fest at the Hard Rock Café from 3 to 6 p.m.

Following “Sirius Speedway”, Tony Stewart and Matt Yocum will unveil their “Stewie Awards” during a special broadcast of “Tony Stewart Live”.

Friday will see a special live broadcast with NEXTEL Cup rookie of the year Juan Pablo Montoya and Chip Ganassi. That’s 11 a.m. est.

Then, Sirius will carry MRN’s coverage of the Awards Ceremony at 7 p.m. from the Waldorf-Astoria.

See these and many more details over at SIRIUS.com.

In what apparently passes for news in western Iowa (and apparently here at Backstage!), Sirius is reportedly increasing their use of local call centers staffed by employees of Stream.  Both KMEG and KTIV have run reports in the last few days about the expanded relationship and the importance of these call centers in Sirius’ efforts to drive OEM subscribtions.

It’s been rumored for a while that Sirius is not having as much success as XM at converting OEM trial subs to paying subs.  This appears to be an effort at changing those numbers.

OK, trying to make up for my embarassing last post…

Sirius has announced that Duran Duran will be a featured artist during November with a slew of special programming across a number of channels.  Highlights include:

• A Takeover of Super Shuffle for 3 days (11/13-15) as “Red Carpet Radio”
• Track-by-track discussion of their new album on the Pulse (Today)
• A one-hour career introspectective on First Wave.
• The band playing some of their favorite songs on Big 80’s daily at noon.

There will also be Punk and Reggae specials hosted by the band.

I don’t often blog about programming events, and even less rarely on Hip-Hop topics…but I got to let you all know about this one!

Shade45 is rumored to be celebrating its 3rd anniversary with replay of it’s inaugural program on Friday, Nov. 9th at 6PM EST.  I seem to remeber that lots of members here praised the program when it first aired (but I can’t find the thread.)

EDIT:  Nevermind, as this took place a week before I posted it!  D’oh!! :homer: