SiriusXM’s “Left” Channel Rebrands

“SiriusXM Left,” will re-launch as “SiriusXM Progress” on July 22 with an expanded line-up, the satellite radio company announced Tuesday. 

The name change is part of the channel’s fresh focus on activism — SiriusXM Progress’s tagline is “We don’t just talk, we do” — and progressive politics.

“I think this is a pretty big deal, and it’s a way to really renew the energy and the interest in progressive talk radio,” Sirius XM’s Mark Thompson told POLITICO.

Thompson, a longtime civil rights and NAACP activist, said rebranding the channel means progressive talk will have a definitive home on satellite radio.

“Just like the right has its channels from its perspective, those of us who are progressive will have our channel from our perspective. It’s very important, too, because terrestrial talk radio is dominated by the right,” said Thompson, whose program “Make it Plain with Mark Thompson” will air weekdays from 6-9pm EST.

“SiriusXM Progress will provide an outlet for people who are progressive and people who still consider themselves on the left, and we’ll be a clearinghouse for that discussion with our whole line-up. Some of the most well-known and traditional progressive hosts will still be here with us, so we’re pretty much battening down the hatches.”

Progressive talkers have long been dwarfed by their conservative counterparts in nearly

every capacity, from advertising to audience size to available stations, and have faced several notable failures with the end of Air America in 2010 and the recent shutdown of Portland’s commercial progressive talk-radio station last year.

Read More Now