Air America to air exclusively on XM

[Slinky]

www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=77810

Excerpt:

"XM satellite radio has announced a long term deal with Air America Radio in which XM will become the official satellite radio network for Air America. Under the agreement, XM's liberal talk channel, America Left, will be renamed Air America Radio in May. Air America can currently be heard on both satcasters, XM and Sirius Satellite Radio, but that arrangement will end when the new XM-Air America pact kicks in."

My comments:

Even though I'm not much of a fan of Air America, this is a huge pick-up for XM that will sway fans of left-leaning radio over to their service.  Since Air America is still not heard in that many markets terrestrially, there is a large portion of its audience that can only receive it on satellite or internet.

[danwxman1]

Sirius has always been light-years ahead of XM when it comes to Talk, but this is quite a hit. One of the main reasons I went with Sirius was its full broadcast of Air America.

That being said, I've pretty much fallen in love with the rest of Sirius's programming. The only thing I listen to on Air America anymore is Al Franken. I guess we'll see come May what Sirius does with the Air America channel. I don't see them having two right-wing channels and only one left-wing channel, so maybe this will open the door to even more left-wing talk show hosts.