I am a little late in reporting this, but SIRIUS announced on Tuesday that Mark Cuban, the outspoken, sometimes too outspoken for the NBA league commissioner, owner of the Dallas Mavericks has signed to do a weekly talk show. Mark Cuban was interviewed by Kevin C. Tofel back last October for Weblogs Inc. sibling blog HDBeat.com. Cuban's show "Radio Maverick" will be broadcast on SIRIUS Stars 102 Sundays from 12 pm - 2 pm ET starting this summer.

In the press release Cuban is quoted as saying that he is fired up about the show and that "I plan on raising hell and covering any and all topics that I think are interesting and taking no prisoners along the way." Having seen and heard some of his tirades toward the NBA officials during some of the Dallas Mavericks games, he definitely has his own opinions and is not afraid to use them.SIRIUS' President of Entertainment and Sports, Scott Greenstein said "Radio Maverick will be a forum without limits, where he can talk to SIRIUS listeners about everything from the NBA to an MBA."

[Via TheStreet.com]

We have had some SIRIUS S50 portable device coverage here in the past including Kevin Tofel's post on the last minute changes they made in response to RIAA intervention, and now we got news of an agreement concerning the device. SIRIUS and Universal Music Group have reached an agreement over the S50's ability to separate individual songs from the satellite stream into individual MP3 files.

Music industry leaders were concerned that the ability to save songs individually was a lost chance at being able to sell that song. The music industry wants their money and felt they should be getting paid for these lost sale opportunities. Record labels had threatened to sue SIRIUS over the S50 device for copyright violations. Back in December an agreement was reached to extend the deadline to work out the final deal.

The final details are not known, but it seem that SIRIUS will be compensating Universal Music Group and avoiding any legal proceedings. These charges are not going to be passed onto the SIRIUS subscribers. This deal is expected to serve as a basis for similar deals with other record companies, and since the current deal only covers the S50, most likely it will also be used as the template for other devices in the future.

Starting in the 2007 model year, Volkswagen and Audi will only offer SIRIUS as the satellite radio option available in their cars. They used to offer the choice of XM or SIRIUS to customers wanting satellite radio installed. The deal is good through the 2012 model year. The 4th largest auto maker Volkswagen said they expect to install SIRIUS satellite in 80% of their vehicles, which will come with three free months of service.

By way of the Podcasternews.com blog, there is an announcement that HBO signed a promotional deal with Podtrac. It is listed on the Podcasternews.com site's blog as some of the PCN shows have been selected by HBO to be part of their campaign with Podtrac.

'Big Love', the new show that is the focus of this promotional campaign starts March 12th. It is a a fictional series about Polygamy. You can view a trailer for it over at HBO's Site.

For Full Disclosure: I am a podcaster over at Podcasternews.com and my show is one of the ones that is part of the promotional campaign.

Who has a following along the same lines as Howard Stern? Oprah Winfrey, that's who.

The multimedia icon has signed a three-year deal with Winfrey that will have the talk-show icon creating a new channel called "Oprah and Friends." Winfrey will host a weekly show on the channel. Other programs will feature personalities from Oprah's stable of regulars. XM got Winfrey for a fraction of what Sirius signed Howard Stern for, just $55 million over the three years. The new channel is expected to be a hit among women, who make up a great deal of Winfrey's core audience. The low cost of the deal also means XM won't have to add too many subscribers to pay for the contract.