SiriusXM’s comedy channel kept its airtime and cut its comedians from 812 to 275

SiriusXM’s uncensored comedy channel, rebranded in April as Sebastian Maniscalco’s Comedy Radio, played 812 different comedians that month and 275 in September, according to airplay data compiled by Stand Up for Standup, a comedians’ nonprofit. On Monday, Patton Oswalt, Michelle Wolf, Matthew Broussard and dozens of other comics posted videos asking Maniscalco to reconsider the programming, Vulture reports.

Each spin on SiriusXM’s satellite service pays the comic about $15 in royalties, according to the group. For comics who aren’t household names, the channel, which ran as Raw Comedy on channel 99 before the rebrand, was a steady monthly check and a national audience.

Total spins held between 7,800 and 9,400 a month all year, according to the group’s numbers, which come from the tracking site XMPlaylist. More than 75% of plays now go to the top 50 acts. Vulture lists Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Hart and Ricky Gervais among the most played. Jim Florentine, Liz Miele and Ian Edwards, who got frequent play on Raw Comedy, no longer turn up.

In June, nearly half the names on the channel’s monthly top 100 were swapped out, and only 25 comics appear on both the March and September lists. The most-played act drew 183 spins in September, against 90 for March’s leader. The act ranked 100th drew 25 spins in March and 4 in September.

Run the group’s $15 estimate across those monthly totals and the channel pays out somewhere around $117,000 to $141,000 a month in comedy royalties, before and after the rebrand. SiriusXM told Vulture it “continues to invest in comedians more than any other audio platform,” and on these numbers that can be true while the comics’ complaint is also true. The same pool of money now moves up the list, to comics Vulture describes as already famous and wealthy.

The act ranked 100th went from roughly $375 a month to $60. The roster is 537 acts smaller than it was in April, and for the comics who dropped off, the check from this channel went to zero. Stand Up for Standup calls them the middle class of comedy: performers who make a living from standup but often still live paycheck to paycheck.

SiriusXM says the relaunch “introduced a new creative direction and a regularly evolving programming mix.” A channel with a famous comic’s name on it playing famous comics is a coherent product, and a subscriber who knows Gaffigan’s name may well prefer him to a comic they’ve never heard of. Many comedians describe Raw Comedy as a launching pad for lesser-known performers, and a rotation built from people who already made it doesn’t produce the next ones.

Stand Up for Standup says it will add October’s numbers in early November, which will show whether the long tail comes back or the channel settles near 275.

Sources

• Vulture: The Satellite-Radio Drama Tearing Comedians Apart
• Stand Up for Standup: SiriusXM airplay data