Martha Stewart signs on for Sirius channel

Six weeks after being released from federal prison, Martha Stewart has reached a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. to create a 24-hour channel featuring cooking, gardening and entertaining programming for women.

Coming on the heels of separate deals to create a version of “The Apprentice” and a daily cooking show, the four-year agreement announced Monday with Sirius marks Stewart’s latest move to rebuild her business after serving time for lying to the government about a stock sale.

Stewart, who has parlayed her success at homemaking advice into a magazine, TV show and merchandising empire, has dabbled in radio work before, making 90-second “Ask Martha” radio segments.

Sports

‘Monday Night Football’ moving to ESPN

The NFL’s “Monday Night Football,” a staple on ABC for the past 35 seasons, will move to ESPN starting with the 2006 season.

And NBC is returning to the NFL after six years away by taking the Sunday night broadcast previously on ESPN.

The Monday night move from network TV to basic cable — hinted at continually by commissioner Paul Tagliabue — was confirmed Monday by two sources familiar with the deals who spoke to The Associated Press under condition of anonymity. The sources said the league would be expected to get $1.1 billion over eight years from the network.

NBC will get the Sunday night package for $600 million over six years, according to the sources. The network also will get the Super Bowl in 2009 and 2012 as part of the deal, one of the sources said.

Taxes

H&R Block reports rising revenues

H&R Block Inc., the nation’s largest tax preparer, reported Monday that it helped fewer customer than last year during the first three months of the tax season.

H&R Block provided results for Jan. 1 through March 31. The Kansas City, Mo.-based company plans to release results for the entire tax season May 6.

H&R Block said it saw a 0.5 percent decline in customers at its network of more than 11,000 retail offices and department store kiosks from Jan. 1 through March 31. Still, the company said revenues from those locations did better because of a trend toward more complicated tax returns, which increased the average fee per customer 6.9 percent to $146.69.

H&R Block saw those revenues increase 6.4 percent to $1.9 billion during the period.

The company said its digital business — its online service and TaxCut software — had 6.1 percent fewer customers than last year.