A two-day trial that allowed online listeners to freely sample Sirius's full lineup, including Howard Stern, resulted in soaring traffic and online buzz.

Sirius offered the free two-day trial Oct. 25-26, and traffic to Sirius.com on Oct. 25 was up 91 percent compared with the week before (Oct. 18) - and up 201 percent from the same day last year, writes AdAge, citing Hitwise data.Yahoo's Buzz Index for Sirius, calculated based on searches on Yahoo, was up 78 percent on Oct. 25 over the Monday before, and searches for Howard Stern surged 51 percent over the same period.

"The response to the free trial of Sirius Internet Radio was beyond company expectations. We received responses from people in virtually every major country around the world who were accessing Howard Stern and our more than 75 channels of programming online," a spokesman for Sirius is quoted as saying.

Sirius.com drew in 1.75 million unique audience members in September, while HowardStern.com attracted 832,000. Rival XM Satellite Radio received some 2 million unique visitors for the same month.