Martha Stewart, Sirius ink deal

Last week Stewart appeared at a magazine industry awards ceremony as two magazines published by her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., won honors for design and general excellence.

Two TV deals involving Stewart were also announced in the past few months, while she was still in prison: a daily cooking show was announced in December, while the “Apprentice” show was unveiled in February.

Last year, Sirius signed a five-year, $500 million deal to broadcast Howard Stern’s show beginning in 2006, and XM reached a $650 million deal last fall with Major League Baseball. Last week, Sirius also said it would launch a weekly talk show with former Sen. Bill Bradley.

Scott Greenstein, the head of entertainment and sports programming at Sirius, said that Stewart’s channel would “provide women with the definitive complement to their lives and lifestyle.”

Chance Patterson, a spokesman for XM, said that his company had spoken with Stewart’s representatives but declined to make a deal with her.

“We evaluated this deal and passed on it, particularly given what we felt was a limited ad revenue return for our investment,” Patterson said. “We were more interested in doing a show. We didn’t feel it justified doing a whole channel.”

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