Sirius XM Radio has reason to be excited about the success of the cash for clunkers program. The satellite radio operator, which posted quarterly results this morning, raised its income outlook for the year on a potential rebound in car sales.

Chief Executive Mel Karmazin said on the earnings call that he was cautiously optimistic that auto industry sales will pick up in the second half of this year.

After all, any increase in car sales translates into more subscribers for Sirius XM, which gets most of its new users from satellite radios built into cars.

Investors have been optimistic about Sirius’s stock all this week, given the launch of its iPhone software and the government’s Car Allowance Rebate System, which lets people trade in their old vehicles for rebates on new, fuel-efficient cars. Reuters’ Franklin Paul wrote on Tuesday:

The U.S. government’s popular “cash for clunkers” incentive program has added spark to the idea that auto sales may rebound after a four-year decline. By allowing people to trade in old vehicles, the program has lifted industry-wide sales back above 11 million units on an annualized basis.

What’s more, Barrington Research analyst James Goss told Paul that Sirius converts about half of its users who get trial accounts when they buy a car into paying customers.

Now, only time will tell whether the optimism lasts, both in the beleaguered U.S. car industry and among Sirius shareholders.

Keep an eye on:

• How Netflix gets your movies to your mailbox so fast. (Chicago Tribune)
• Falling terminal sales have prompted Bloomberg to make one-off payments to staff. (Financial Times)
• Thomson Reuters posts a better-than-expected quarterly profit. (Reuters)

Photo: Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin/Reuters

Allen & Co’s 27th Sun Valley media and technology conference starts on July 7 and ends on July 12. In the meantime, expect media writers to breathlessly report, blog, tweet, photograph and record the event. Why the fuss? There are literally hundreds of people coming who are known to do nothing else than run the universe when it comes to TV shows, movies, telecoms, the Internet and all sorts of other electronic communications. We have lists of all the people who bankroll them as well, along with a list of other interesting people you will find there.

Here, meanwhile, are the big men and women of media and technology who justify the travel budgets that increasingly hard-up news organizations have to put out for your favorite folks in the press corps to hide behind the hedges and hope for a handout that will break news, move markets and excite our editors. Keep in mind: this list is not a guarantee that these people are showing up; it’s just an invitation list (arranged alphabetically by company). We’ll update it as we learn more. (Our boldface names indicate some general viewpoint that they’re the stars of the stars.)

• James McCann, CEO, 1-800-flowers.com.
• Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard Inc. Also Brian Kelly, co-chairman.
• Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com Inc.
• Tim Armstrong, chairman and CEO, AOL
• Michael Ovitz, AMSEF LLC, former uber-talent agent at Creative Artists Agency and former Walt Disney Co executive.
• Gerhard Zeiler, CEO, RTL Group, Bertelsmann AG.
• Bill and Melinda Gates, of the foundation of the same name. Bill, of course, co-founded Microsoft Corp.
• Mark Vadon, executive chairman, Blue Nile Inc.
• James Dolan, president, CEO, Cablevision Systems Corp.
• Leslie Moonves, president, CEO, CBS Corp. Also Neil Ashe, president, CBS Interactive. Also Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive. (And a former Allen & Co man.)
• Charlie Rose, interviewer and anchor on the Charlie Rose Show
• Anthony Bloom, Cineworld plc
• Richard Parsons, chairman, Citigroup Inc. Former CEO, Time Warner Inc.
• Lowry Mays, chairman, Clear Channel Communications Inc.
• Ralph Roberts, founder, chairman emeritus, Comcast Corp. Also Stephen Burke, president and COO, Comcast Cable.
• Patrick Condo, president, CEO, Convera Corp.
• Jimmy Hayes, CEO, Cox Enterprises Inc.
• Richard Lovett, president, Creative Artists Agency Inc. Also Bryan Lourd, managing partner.
• Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, Dell Inc.
• Richard Rosenblatt, chairman and CEO, Demand Media. He used to work at MySpace’s parent company before News Corp bought it.
• Chase Carey, former DirecTV CEO and Rupert Murdoch’s new No. 2 man at News Corp.
• John Hendricks, founder and chairman, Discovery Communications. Also president and CEO David Zaslav.
• Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO, DreamWorks Animation SKG.
• John Donahoe, president and CEO, eBay Inc.
• Dara Khosrowshahi, president and CEO, Expedia Inc.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (We’ve heard conflicting reports about whether he’ll show. Either way, he’s still on our list.)
• Tom Freston, principal, Firefly3 LLC. Former Viacom executive.
• Martin Varsavsky, CEO, FON
• Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO, General Electric Co.
• Jeff Zucker, CEO, NBC Universal. (GE)
• Ronald Meyer, president and COO, Universal Studios. (GE)
• Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google. Also co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
• Juan Luis Cebrian, CEO, Grupo Prisa. Also Ignacio Polanco, chairman.
• Emilio Azcarraga, chairman and president, Grupo Televisa. Also Alfonso de Angoitia, executive vp.
• Christopher Schroeder, CEO, HealthCentral. Also former CEO of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
• Cathleen Black, president, Hearst Magazines.
• R. Todd Bradley, executive vp, personal systems group, Hewlett-Packard Co. Also CEO Mark Hurd.
• Barry Diller, chairman, CEO, IAC/InterActiveCorp. Also chairman, Expedia Inc. Also Victor Kaufman, vice chairman, IAC/InterActiveCorp.
• Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman, Illyria Pty Ltd. Son of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch.
• Craig Barrett, former CEO, chairman, Intel Corp. Also Sean Maloney, executive vp, chief sales and marketing officer.
• Jeffrey Berg, chairman and CEO, International Creative Management. Also president Christopher Silbermann.
• Michael Volpi, formerly of Cisco Systems Inc and Joost.
• Eric Eisner, L+E Pictures. Son of former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner.
• Kevin Reilly, CEO, Lamar Advertising Co.
• Michael Fries, president and CEO, Liberty Global Inc.
• John Malone, chairman, Liberty Media Corp. Also Greg Maffei, president and CEO.
• Reid Hoffman, chairman, president of products, LinkedIn Corp.
• Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO, Loopt Inc.
• Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, advanced strategies and policy, Microsoft Corp. Also Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices division, and Henry Vigil, senior vp, strategy and partnership.
• Rupert Murdoch, CEO, News Corp. Also with him is his second son, James Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp’s Europe and Asia operations. Also Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s chairman and CEO for its digital media group. Former president and COO Peter Chernin, whose last day was June 30, is coming along too, in tow with CFO David DeVoe and new MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta.
• Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning Inc.
• Jorma Ollila, chairman, Nokia Corp.
• Greg Wyler, founder, O3B Networks Ltd.
• Jeffrey Jordan, president and CEO, OpenTable Inc.
• Jeffery Boyd, president and CEO, priceline.com Inc.
• Maurice Levy, chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe.
• Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO, Qualcomm Inc.
• Robert Johnson, founder and chairman, the RLJ Companies.
• Jay Y. Lee, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Kenneth Lowe, chairman, president and CEO. Scripps Networks Interactive.
• Mel Karmazin, CEO, Sirius XM Radio Inc.
• Max Levchin, CEO, Slide Inc.
• Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO, Sony Corp. Also Kazuo Hirai, president of networked products and services group; Robert Wiesenthal, executive vp and CFO, Sony Corporation of America; Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO, Sony Pictures Entertainment; Hiroshi Yoshioka, executive deputy president, president of consumer products and devices group; and Nicole Seligman, top lawyer.
• Nick Grouf, CEO, Spot Runner Inc.
• Thomas Glocer, CEO, Thomson Reuters Corp, along with Niall FitzGerald, deputy chairman.
• Michael Eisner, the Tornante Company LLC. Former Walt Disney Co CEO.
• Lars Buttler, CEO, Trion World Network Inc.
• Evan Williams, co-founder and chairman, Twitter Inc.
• David Levin, CEO, United Business Media plc.
• James Berkus, chairman, United Talent Agency.
• Brad Grey, chairman and CEO, Paramount Pictures Corp (Viacom).
• Sumner Redstone, chairman, Viacom. Also Philippe Dauman, president and CEO.
• Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO, Vivendi.
• Robert Iger, president and CEO, Walt Disney Co. Also Thomas Staggs, CFO.
• Edgar Bronfman Jr, chairman and CEO, Warner Music Group.
• Donald Graham, chairman, CEO, The Washington Post Co.
• Casey Wasserman, chairman and CEO, Wasserman Media Group LLC.
• Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman, The Weinstein Co.
• Shelby Bonnie, CEO, Whiskey Media LLC.
• Jim Wiatt, William Morris Endeavor.
• Terry Semel, chairman and CEO, Windsor Media. Former Yahoo CEO.
• Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP.
• Anne Mulcahy, chairman, Xerox Corp.
• Jerry Yang, chief Yahoo.
• Mark Pincus, founder, CEO, Zynga Inc.

It’s the media! That’s what Sirius would have us believe.

On a post-earnings call on Thursday executives said the company’s precarious financial position during the last few months as it sought to resolve a looming debt debacle was exacerbated by the media’s interest in Sirius. Apparently, stories about companies going bust not only upset investors and creditors, but customers too.

Sirius XM President of Operations Jim Meyer told Wall Street analysts he’s excited to have completed the debt refinancing and merger between Sirius and XM so the company can assure customers it will be around for a while.

There certainly was headwind associated with both the confusion of putting the two companies together and the overall just unbelievable amount of news and press that we have seen really in the fourth quarter and continuing in January and February on the financial condition and refinancing of our balance sheet.

CEO Mel Karmazin agreed:

It’s particularly sensitive for us because people prepay their subscriptions in large part. So the idea of all of the noise in the market certainly when you are asking somebody to prepay and buy a year in advance or something like that, obviously has an impact.

That pesky media!

(Photo of Mel Karmazin/Reuters)

Ah the media, we love a ruckus. We really do. And when the two pugilists are characters as colorful and savvy as Dish Network’s founder Charlie Ergen (left) and Siriux XM Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin (right) we do really get excited.

If you remember, Ergen was widely reported last month to have made a back door bid to take a stake in Sirius XM by quietly buying up some of the satellite radio company’s outstanding debt.  Analysts and experts came up with all kind of theories as to Ergen’s ambitions including taking complete control of Sirius on the cheap, combining various satellite assets, and kicking Mel out.

At the time Ergen ’s official channels at Dish and EchoStar declined to comment on the matter. So today’s Dish earning call was the first time we heard from the man himself on the matter. Well, it turns out the press was right on most things connected with the Sirius bid, according to Ergen. Except for one thing: he does not have bad blood with Sirius CEO Karmazin.

Here’s Ergen from the conference call:

I would take this opportunity to say one thing that clearly was not true is there wasn’t, at least I can speak for my end, there’s no annimosity toward Mel, Parsons [former XM chair] or anything like that.

I don’t know where they got that. Certainly not from our side.

Really?

Maybe the stories of an old feud were overplayed, but there might have something other than pure cold financial logic that influenced Mel’s final decision on this deal. Liberty Media beat Ergen in the bid for a stake in the beleaguered satellite radio business by offering to pay off Sirius’ due loans. In an interview with Reuters shortly after winning the Sirius bid last month, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei implied there may have been some… ahem, personality issues in its favor.

“There clearly is less enthusiasm for Charlie from some members of Sirius XM,” said Maffei.

We wonder which members those were?

So after two weeks of following all the twists and turns of Sirius XM’s attempts to avoid bankruptcy, CEO Mel Karmazin decided on John Malone, founder of Liberty Media, to come in as Sirius XM’s white knight with a $530 million loan . The loan will cover the satellite radio provider’s looming debt and help it avoid bankruptcy. As part of the deal Liberty will eventually take a 40 percent stake in Sirius’ equity.

But does this mean the big money deals that Karmazin signed with the likes of Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey and Major League Baseball will get re-worked at a more favorable rate for the company now that there’s a new major stakeholder?

No, says Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei in an interview with Reuters.

You can look and say some of these content deals were cut at a time when there were two guys (Sirius and XM) bidding against each other in a relative frenzy. Having said that, a lot of these content relationships like Howard Stern are very valuable to this company, have been important in building the company, and are likely to be important in sustaining it.

But Stern isn’t quite out of the woods.

I’ll rely on Mel and his team to think about how those content relationships look going forward and make the right decisions,” said Mafffei. “All those content (deals) have some term and they’ll get renegotiated or reset at that time for the value that they’re then creating.

With Sirius generating net operating losses which hit $217 million in the third quarter, it would make sense that Liberty might suggest that Karmazin looks at trimming one of its biggest outgoing cashflows: talent costs. But Mafffei seems not to agree.

I don’t think you look and say the way to build profitable business is to hammer the content deal here…as deals rooll-off you can appropriately look at those that are which are adding value and those that are not.

Sirius XM shareholders have seen a lot of dark days — face it, we’re talking about a stock that dropped to 15 cents a share. But today isn’t one of them. At least so far.

Indeed, shares of the satellite radio company jumped 100 percent after Liberty Media Corp agreed to lend it $530 million, allowing Sirius XM and its leader, Mel Karmazin, to sidestep a debt crisis.

The deal comes after a breathless week during which Sirius XM came under threat from EchoStar Corp and its top man Charles Ergen, a longtime rival of Karmazin, and looked very close to bankruptcy.

Now, Liberty Media Corp and yet another media mogul, John Malone, have come to the rescue. Here’s the deal, according to Reuters:

Under the agreement, Liberty would first provide a $280 million senior secured loan to Sirius XM, of which $250 million would be funded on Tuesday to help the satellite radio company repay $171.6 million in convertible notes maturing today.

Then Liberty would provide another $150 million loan to XM Satellite Radio, Sirius XM’s wholly owned subsidiary, and also purchase up to $100 million of XM’s credit facilities.

Once the loans are completed, Sirius XM would issue Liberty 12.5 million shares of preferred stock convertible into 40 percent of common stock.

While the markets are sorting through what all this means, you may want to check out a piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal this morning. It takes an interesting look at how Karmazin got himself into this crazy spot in the first place…

Last summer, after the long-awaited merger of Sirius with rival XM was finally completed, Mr. Karmazin needed to refinance more than $1 billion in debt that the combined company needed to pay off in 2009. But the 65-year-old chairman decided to hold off. The refinancing terms available, he said during an interview in early September, were “ugly” and he was under “no pressure” to get it done immediately.

But the looming deadline provided an opportunity for Charles Ergen….

As of this morning, it looks like he may have wiggled out of Ergen’s grasp. The question is, how does this play out long term?

Keep an eye on:

• Facebooks chief executive is trying to reassure users they they control their information, not the website (NY Times)
• Agency fees are the latest casualty in Anheuser-Busch InBev’s quest to trim $1.5 billion in costs out of the world’s largest brewer (AdAge.com)

(Photo: Reuters)

When media moguls duke it out, what’s their battleground? Newspapers, evidently.

For the past week, EchoStar boss Charlie Ergen and Sirius XM radio’s CEO Mel Karmazin have been doing battle on the pages of two venerable dailies, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The Journal had a head start on the story, reporting how Ergen had started buying up Sirius debt in an attempt to force the satellite radio company into a deal. Then, it revealed how Ergen had actually made an offer to buy Sirius, which Karmazin rejected.

While the rest of the media was digesting all this, out came the Times with a story that said Sirius was preparing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which could come within days. It had even hired bankruptcy experts, the Times wrote. The Journal quickly swatted that idea down, saying:

“The hiring of bankruptcy and restructuring advisers, while not surprising given the company’s financial predicament, doesn’t mean a filing is imminent.”

It refined that idea in a story Wednesday night, taking a direct swipe at the Times’ reporting:

“This week, Sirius representatives responded to Mr. Ergen’s move by spreading word that the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy and had hired bankruptcy and restructuring advisers. Company officials also privately told investors that Sirius has entered a “zone of insolvency” and that a bankruptcy filing would be preferable to cutting a deal with Mr. Ergen, according to people who participated in the discussions.”

The New York Post has since gotten into the game, and all three papers reported on Wednesday the appearance of a “white knight” in the form of Liberty Media’s John Malone, who controls DirecTV.

With these papers probably taking turns to report the latest developments on this story, we’re all in danger of getting whiplash.

Keep an eye on:

• The Federal Communications Commission approved the spin-off of Time Warner Cable from Time Warner Inc. That can only be good news for Jeff Bewkes, who can now focus all his attention on selling off AOL. (Reuters)
• The merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster has raised political hackles, but the groups are out to defend. (Financial Times)
• The media’s love affair with Twitter, or at least writing about it, continues, with yet another takeout on the microblogging site. (The New York Times)

(P.S. A subscription may be required to access The Wall Street Journal stories.)

(Photo: Reuters)

Because of a big upcoming debt payment — and a stock price of about 14 cents a share — Sirius XM Satellite Radio finds itself in quite a predicament.

This, apparently, hasn’t been lost on EchoStar’s Charles Ergen, who may be getting ready to take over the company.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Ergen has recently acquired part of a $300 million tranche of Sirius debt that matures on Feb. 17: “Sirius recently converted part of the debt to equity, reducing the total debt outstanding to about $175 million. It isn’t clear whether Mr. Ergen participated in the exchange, however. Mr. Ergen could also be buying up senior bank debt, due in May, which trades thinly on the over-the-counter market.”

Given all this, we now offer some food for thought:

1. How does Sirius XM’s Mel Karmazin feel about all this? After all, he is a well-known dealmaker. Is he ready to sell? Ergen could be doing him a favor.
2. If this does pave the way for an EchoStar takeover, would such a deal even make sense? Is there any business wisdom in combining satellite radio and satellite TV?
3. And where would such a deal leave Karmazin? Satellite radio has been his baby, would he leave the game altogether? If not, then how could he work with Ergen? Remember, Karmazin and Sumner Redstone? Not exactly a match made in Heaven.

Keep an eye on:

• Hollywood may at last be having its Napster moment — struggling against the video version of the digital looting that capsized the music business (NY Times)
• Warner Music Group posted better-than-expected results on Thursday, despite falling CD sales and slower growth in digital revenue (Reuters)
• Online DVD company Netflix Incon said one million Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console users have activated Netflix’s movie streaming service in the three months since the two companies formed a partnership (Reuters)

(Photo: Sirius XM Chief Executive Mel Karmazin/Reuters)

Safe haven. Two magical — and mysterious — words. Cable and satellite companies didn’t fit the safe haven bill in 2008, but 2009 just may be there year.

According to a Reuters story out today, “cable and satellite service providers now hold the promise of strong free cash flow growth as they retain old customers but spend less on deploying set-top boxes and digital video recorders due to a fall in new subscriber growth.”

Remember, however, that before the economy fell apart, a number of investors considered the pay TV industry “recession proof.” The argument went that even in the toughest of times, Americans would stay home and watch TV, saving money on trips to movies or out to dinner.

But this argument overlooked a number of factors that have really undermined the industry. For example, fewer people are moving into new homes, and those that do aren’t likely  to spend their savings on discretionary channels like HBO.

Before jumping on the bandwagon, however, it may be wise to take a look at some of the earnings coming up over the next couple weeks. Start with Time Warner Cable tomorrow, that should be a good gauge of whether these guys really can provide shelter from the storm.

Keep an eye on:

• The age of Obama dawned with a wake-up call to the U.S. television industry to get serious about Internet-based sources of revenue (Reuters)
• Barry Diller’s Internet media company IAC/InterActiveCorp posted a fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday after benefiting from the sale of a Japanese TV shopping channel last December (Reuters)
• Sirius XM Satellite Radio later this month will have to find a way to handle $174.6 million in debt that is coming due (Wall Street Journal)

(Photo: Reuters)

Sirius XM Radio has got a lot of big issues: a huge debt load; its deflated stock price; the auto industry — its biggest source of news subscribers — is hurting; and consumers are shying away from consumer electronics this holiday season.

The company planned to address some of those issues today at its shareholder meeting, hoping to win the right to issue 3.5 billion shares and launch a reverse stock split. Those moves may not fix all of its woes.

But the company has at least addressed one other festering problem. They are bringing back Monie Love in January.

To be clear, they are bringing back “The Strobe” and “Backspin”, respectively, Disco and Old School Hip-Hip channels that bit the dust when Sirius last month combined its content with XM’s. The consolidation angered listeners and even sparked a mass cancellation effort.

Rapper and Radio Host Monie Love

Most people, save for “hip-hop heads”, have no idea who this respected figure in old school rap is. But for listeners of XM Satellite’s defunct channel “The Rhyme”, her show “Ladies’ First with Monie Love” was a “must-hear”, full of classic jams and special guests. (Think Little Steven’s show for rap crowd).

CEO Mel Karmazin at the Reuters Media Summit suggested that tough times call for tough programming choices. This week Sirius seemed to say “Look! we are flexible!”

We will continue to listen to them (subscribers) as we strive to create the best audio entertainment experience available.
– Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer, SIRIUS XM Radio.

Now about that $1 billion in debt…

Keep an eye on:

• - Live Nation to lose $19 million on U2 share deal (WSJ)
• - LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman returns as CEO (WSJ)
• - Disney has been sued over a profit sharing contract (LA Times)

(Photos: Reuters, Monie Love’s Myspace page)