Middle Class Comedians Cut Out of Sebastian Maniscalco’s Comedy Radio
We at Stand Up for Stand Up have been closely monitoring an evolving situation that impacts hundreds of comedians and their livelihoods. Recently, SiriusXM’s uncensored comedy channel, Raw Comedy (formerly channel 99), has been rebranded as Sebastian Maniscalco’s Comedy Radio (now on the dial at channel 102). SiriusXM has long been an extremely meaningful source of earnings for comedians at all stages in their careers. Both supporting the bottom line, and providing access to a national audience tuning in specifically to hear stand up on satellite radio.
With a channel rebrand comes an expected change in programming. This article is written to document some of the changes we’ve seen, and how it is impacting what we refer to as “the middle class of comedy” – those comics who are making a reasonable living from their comedy career, but are often still living paycheck to paycheck, and not (yet) household names. Those comics have historically enjoyed meaningful spins from SiriusXM, which aids in supporting their comedy career in the form of passive royalty earnings.
As you’ll see from the data below, the spins on Sebastian’s channel have drastically shifted from a wider pool of 800+ comedians enjoying spins (and thus, royalties and exposure to the audience of listeners), to a narrower pool of 300-400 comedians getting plays per month. And of those few hundred who are getting spins, over 75% of the plays are going to the top 50 artist, which results in a concentration of wealth among the top echelon, which is largely made up of Sebastian’s peers.
We believe this shift, both in the overall quantity of artists enjoying plays on Channel 102, and the change in distribution across all spin-getters favoring the top few, is bad for comedians, and bad for the future of comedy. It hurts passive revenue, and discoverability, as well as the infrastructure that supports up and coming comedians. We hope that this observation can help steer Sebastian Maniscalco’s Comedy Radio towards programming that is more diverse and showcases comedians more broadly, returning the uncensored channel to a healthier mix of up and coming names, as well as the marquee artists who have joined the channel in the past few months.
Sebastian Maniscalco's Comedy Radio – Sep 2025 – Aug 2026
SiriusXM's Raw Comedy channel rebranded as Sebastian Maniscalco's Comedy Radio in April 2026. In the months since, programming on the channel has changed in ways that affect which comedians get airtime: the pool of acts getting spins has shrunk, and the spins that remain have concentrated into a smaller, more marquee-heavy lineup.
Data provided by XMPlaylist. If you’re a comedian curious about your spin numbers, visit www.xmplaylist.com to search the last 90 days of your spin history for free. Special thanks to Scott Cooper of XMPlaylist for his help.
Fewer Comics Getting a Taste
Total spins per month barely moved all year (7,800–9,400). What changed is how many different acts split them — the active roster shrank by roughly 40% as the channel rebrand took hold, and airtime concentrated hard into fewer names.
← Scroll back for earlier months
A Steep Change in the Distribution of Spins
Each month, the top 100 is calculated by ranking total spins per act. June 2026 saw a shift — that month, nearly half the names on the top 100 list were swapped out, and spins shifted toward a much smaller roster featuring more famous performers, receiving heavier rotation - a staggering concentration of wealth. The chart below is split into six bands of that month's ranking: 1–10, 11–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–100, and everyone past rank 100. Watch the palest band — the long tail — shrink to almost nothing by July, and stay there through August.
← Scroll back for earlier months
View as table
Who’s in Rotation, Before and After
The spin counts show how much airtime moved. The names show who moved with it. Below, the 100 most-played acts of March 2026 — the last full month before the rebrand — sit beside the 100 most-played acts of July 2026, the first full month after the new rotation settled. Only 31 names appear on both lists. The other 69 were replaced, one for one.