Hey I agree...however I heard on O'Reilly that it was 500 million.
I heard that same amount from Phil Hendrie. Phil made a good case to support this move in radio because it allows broadcasters like him to have an alternative to the restrictions of public broadcast radio. Michael Savage even acknowledged that this was a good move, because as long as satellite radio becomes a viable alternative for radio talent like him, he has more options when he's faced with the problems he has had in the past with public broadcast radio.
After reading through these threads, it appears that Howard Stern will not be on the air 24/7, but he will develop new talent (or hire existing talent) on his station. Also, his radio station (or satellite band) will be available to all subscribers of Sirius, so Stern's fans just have to pay the basic subscription price to hear his station. On XM, Opie and Anthony charge an additional monthly fee to hear their station. I gather that will keep Stern from making the station foul mouthed 24/7.
Furthermore, I believe that Stern only needs to attract 1,000,000 subscribers to make this profitable for Sirius. As much as I have come to dislike him due to his Bush bashing trash, I believe he can attract that many listeners and more.
In the end, he'll have little political influence though. His listeners won't be focused in swing states or what not because his listeners will be scattered throughout the country, and I suspect his audience will even be smaller than it is now.