• R&B virtuoso, J. Valentine signs with Clive Davis’s J Records
• No Women in Rock
  Only two women with VP stripes currently sign acts at major labels: Wendy Goldstein, senior vice president of A&R/urban for Capitol Records, and Jolene Cherry, senior vice president of A&R for Universal.
• A New YouTube.
  News Corp.’s Fox, Viacom, CBS, and NBC Universal are in talks about creating a video Web site to compete with Google’s YouTube. The companies aim to cash in on the market of Web video advertising

Executives of Sirius Satellite Radio are again hinting at a potential merger with XM Satellite Radio that they say would bring strong gains for investors.

Sirius executives mentioned “significant benefits” and “value creation” from a combination of the two radio companies.

“Consolidation creates value . . . particularly when you are in the same industry as anothercompany to be able to combine,” Sirius chief executive Mel Karmazin said

XM and Sirius are both facing slowing subscription growth and huge debt. Neither company has yet earned a profit.

“Both Sirius and XM could prosper much more easily if they took up the fight against terrestrial radio operators, rather than against each other,” Moran said.

Google has completed the development of radio advertising system and begun a limited test allowing customers to buy ads via its online ad-buying system.

Google Audio Ads is working with more than 700 radio stations covering more than 200 metropolitan U.S. markets. Analysts expect Google Audio Ads to shake up the $20 billion annual U.S. radio advertising industry by offering a simplified Web-based purchasing process for radio ads to its existing base of hundreds of thousands of text advertisers

One executive at a big radio company said last month the industry was moving cautiously in its dealings with Google.Â

Bank concurred, saying: “There’s a real mixed emotion among radio operators.” On the one hand, Google’s entry may turn radio advertising into more of a commodity. “A disaster could occur if people who were buying spots offline started buying online at a lower pricing level,” Bank said.

Google is seeking to expand beyond the pay-per-click Web search advertising market it dominates to offer advertising across a range of traditional and new media formats ranging from newspapers to online video.

• Sevendust and their record label, 7Bros. Records, have partnered with Asylum Records, which is part of Warner Music Group’s Independent Label Group.
• Imogen Heap has been nominated for Best New Artist (even though she’s been around for ten years)…good for her.

• Several interested major publishing companies will be checking out
  Fair to Midland (recently signed to Serjical Strike/Universal and recording with David Bottrill) at their Whiskey show on Tuesday December 12 at 9:30 Mgmt: Tom Sarig/Frank Hill; Legal: Ben McLane.
• Warner Music Embraces the Future
  Apple’s iTunes won’t have a monopoly forever. As handset makers and telephone carriers step up to the plate, “Our distribution won’t be as focused on a single customer in two to three years as it is today,” Bronfman said.”We had basically been releasing content on the same platform for 25 years,” he added, “and we have to pick up the pace of technological innovation.”
• Check out the band called the Vacancies that is signed to Joan Jett’s label Blackheart Records. Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna produced their new CD, A Beat Missing or a Silence Added. For more information email Kimberly Korn.
• Check out alternative act Lemon Sun who hails from Los Angeles. They have a residency in December at the Echo (Echo Park). For more information contact Larry Little or 323.422.7000. Listen to the trackÂ
  The Answer.
• Olivia Newton-John is suing record label Universal Music Group, claiming she is owed more than $1 million in royalties from sales of the soundtrack from her hit movie ‘Grease.