AirAmerica will no longer be on Sirius

[Larry Weil]

AirAmerica has entered a deal which makes XM the "Official satellite radio 
station of AirAmerica".  As a result, AA will no longer be on Sirius when 
their contract expires on June 12.  XM will have a new channel for Sirius, 
which will include the full AA lineup, rather than the partial coverage 
they have now.

In my opinion, this is a boneheaded move by AA.  I'm sure they're getting 
some money from XM for doing this, but they are really PO'ing their current 
listeners on Sirius, many of whom bought Sirius in part to hear AA.  It is 
just the type of monopolistc move that many of the listeners to AA would be 
oposed to.

I wrote to Sirius, because much of the discussion on siriusbackstage.com 
concerned their not being any official announcement that AA was going off 
Sirius.  Here's part of the reply I received from their CSR:

>Dear Larry,
>
>We regretfully inform you that Air America programming will no longer be
>available on SIRIUS, we're thrilled to announce that we are currently
>working to develop an exciting new programming lineup for SIRIUS Channel
>144.  We suggest you visit our website regularly for exciting new
>additions to our programming!

I don't blame Sirius for this one, I blame AA for agreeing to an exclusive 
deal.  My response to Sirius was to suggest that if they are developing new 
programming for channel 144, that they include "Lionel".


Larry Weil
Lake Wobegone, NH