Running The Ratings Numbers at XM and Sirius

And You Don't Have To Count Very High; No Surprise or Sign of Trouble?

Arbitron, with a few caveats, has released the first ratings report for XM and Sirius channels. As you'd expect, with nearly 400 channels between them, the audience is rather spread out. And for most channels, Howard Stern, excepted, rather puny. In some instances, only a few hundred listeners may be tuned in at any given time.
In and of itself, that does not come as a shock. But further down the line, the numbers could have some troubling implications, especially if the two companies succeed in merging.
For example, the two XM stations I listen to the most, adult album alternative channels Starbucks XM Cafe and The Loft together pull in just over 10,000 listeners in an average quarter hour. Over at Sirius, the similarly themed The Spectrum notches 3,700 listeners a quarter hour.
If XM and Sirius merge, as the two companies desperately hope to do by the end of the year, it could be hard to make a case for three similar stations that together can't even muster 15,000 listeners, even if they are intensely loyal and may have predicated their decisions to describe largely on the basis of these channels.
XM has already jettisoned one AAA channel, when it combined Hear Music with the XM Cafe earlier this year.
Still, all those small numbers eventually do add up. And satellite radio listeners can register their discontent with their wallets. People choose to pay $12.95 a month for their subscriptions -- they don't need to.
Here's a cheat sheet for the top channels on both services. The first figure is the average number of listeners per quarter hour. The second number is their channel position, followed by their cumulative audience for the week:

TOP 5 XM TALK
1 20,800 The Virus (202) [O&A] 22 16,800
2 15,500 Fox News (121) 485,400
3 9,300 XM Comedy (150) 422,200
4 9,100 ESPN Radio (140) 262,600
5 8,700 Talk Radio (165) [Beck, Ramsey etc.] 154,800


TOP 5 SIRIUS TALK

1 96,700 Howard Stern 100 (100) 1,225,100
2 30,700 Howard Stern 101 (101) 502,000
3 8,600 Sirius NASCAR Radio (128) 177,600
4 6,400 Blue Collar Comedy (103) 311,200
5 5,300 ESPN Radio (120) 147,100

TOP 5 XM MUSIC
1 27,100 The Blend (25) [lite pop] 548,0002
2 5,100 Flight 26 (26) [AC] 713,700
3 24,900 Willie's Place (13) [trad. country] 437,000
4 22,900 Top Tracks (46) [classic rock] 607,600
5 21,800 Top 20 on 20 (20) 1,055,300

TOP 5 SIRIUS MUSIC
1 20,400 New Country (60) 455,900
2 17,700 Sirius Hits (1) [Top 40] 653,200
3 17,600 Octane (20) [hard rock] 357,600
4 14,300 The Pulse (9) [90s hits] 405,000
5 12,300 Big 80s (8) 450,000