NorthEast Radio Watch 7/27 & 8/3/2026: Audacy Adds to SiriusXM

In this week’s double issue… Audacy, SXM join forces – Bell swaps Kitchener signals – Ford to DC, Baltimore – ESPN cuts hit NYC’s 880 – Philly hall of famers named – Tynan out at WPVI

By SCOTT FYBUSH

[Programming note: it’s summer and we’re on the road, including a planned appearance at the Texas Association of Broadcasters convention August 5-6, so expect some double issues for the next month or so. Barring major breaking news, our next regular issue will be August 10.]

*Let’s say you’re a Dodgers fan in Delaware, or a Sox fan in South Carolina. If you want to hear full-time sports talk from another market, where do you turn? Sure, there’s streaming and aggregator apps, but the name of the game in today’s multi-platform world is to make your content available in as many places as possible, with as little friction as possible.

Which explains why broadcast and streaming company Audacy is partnering up with competitor SiriusXM to put 42 of its spoken-word stations on SiriusXM’s platforms starting September 1. It’s the first time in more than a decade that SiriusXM will be carrying full simulcasts of terrestrial broadcast stations, and it’s a rather different deal from the one in the service’s early years that had Clear Channel providing the programming of some of its biggest music stations, including New York’s Z100 and LA’s KIIS.

In keeping with SiriusXM’s heavy focus on sports, the nine stations that will be added to the full satellite service available in all vehicles will be Audacy’s biggest sports talkers, including WFAN in New York, WEEI Boston, WIP Philadelphia and KDKA-FM Pittsburgh. The other 13 sports stations in Audacy’s portfolio, including Buffalo’s WGR, will be available on SiriusXM streaming and on newer car platforms that include the streaming-fed 360L capability.

At “a future date,” Audacy says the deal will also include app/360L carriage of its news and talk stations, including New York’s WINS, Philly’s KYW, Pittsburgh’s KDKA, Hartford’s WTIC and Buffalo’s WBEN.

Who wins in a deal like this? For Audacy, it’s more exposure for its local brands both within and outside their home markets, putting content from brands like WFAN and WIP in front of at least some potential listeners who might never be looking on broadcast radio or seeking out Audacy’s own app. For SiriusXM’s promotions department and its listeners, it’s even more sports talk to add to an already hefty lineup of league-branded and specialty content, including a new WWE channel just announced last week.

Who loses? You could argue that a deal between giant companies like Audacy and SiriusXM is the sort of thing smaller broadcasters can’t do with their content, and you’d be right. But it’s also true that the sort of 24/7 sports talk that Audacy churns out isn’t something most smaller broadcasters have the resources to do, either, making this a somewhat unique alliance between content provider and distributor.

(And no, we don’t have all the answers yet as to what happens when WEEI has the Red Sox on, or when WIP has an Eagles game on. In theory, since SiriusXM has all the rights already to carry those games, which now run on their own special-purpose channels, it should be simple enough to also carry them on their home stations’ feeds – but we know sports rights are never simple, either.)