On September 27, 2020, Megyn Kelly released the first episode of an audio-only podcast from her own company, Devil May Care Media. She had no network behind her and no radio slot. Nine months later, on July 6, 2021, she announced that SiriusXM had signed the show as “a live, 2-hour show, going 5 days/wk & adding video too.” The radio version premiered on the Triumph talk channel on September 7, 2021. By the fall of 2026, the SiriusXM channel guide listed a full channel under her name, The Megyn Kelly Channel on 111, and the company’s third-quarter report named her among the hosts whose deals it had just extended.
Most people reading this do not want a channel. They want a 12-minute segment on the right show. But Kelly’s path shows the thing every SiriusXM booking has in common: a producer saw an audience that fit a slot they needed to fill. Your job is to make that fit obvious.
Learning how to get on SiriusXM starts with how it is built. This guide covers that, the difference between its radio channels and its podcasts, who books guests, the framework I use to match a pitch to the right host, and what to do when you want your own show.
How SiriusXM is built: channels, hosts and shows
SiriusXM is a subscription audio company, not a single radio station. According to its third-quarter 2026 results, reported by The Desk in late October, it had 32.85 million total subscribers and 31.26 million self-pay subscribers. Those listeners pay for a lineup of music, sports, comedy and talk channels delivered by satellite in cars and through the SiriusXM app.
For anyone trying to get booked, the talk channels are the part that matters. Each one runs its own schedule of shows, and each show has its own producer. Some channels are built around a single star. Howard 100 is Howard Stern’s home. Radio Andy, on channel 101, is Andy Cohen’s, and Andy Cohen Live airs there weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern with co-host John Hill. Other channels are built around an institution. Business Radio on channel 132 is programmed with the Wharton School, which launched Wharton Business Daily there on November 4, 2019 with host Dan Loney and a guest list of Wharton professors and business leaders. Doctor Radio, now on channel 119, launched on June 2, 2008 with NYU Langone and runs call-in shows hosted by physicians.
Then there are the topic channels: POTUS Politics on 124, SiriusXM Patriot on 125, SiriusXM Progress on 127, The Catholic Channel on 129, Family Talk on 131 and a long list of sports channels. Each carries several shows a day, and each of those shows needs guests.
The lineup moves. On September 1, 2026, SiriusXM closed Howard 101, moved Radio Andy from 102 to 101 and added AM and FM sports stations simulcast from Audacy. Stern’s own schedule changed too. After announcing a new three-year deal on December 16, 2025, he cut his show to one live episode a week, on Mondays, starting September 14, 2026. Check the current channel guide before you pitch anything. A pitch that names last year’s channel number tells a producer you do not listen.
Satellite radio or SiriusXM podcasts?
When people ask how to get on SiriusXM, they mean one of two different things, and the routes do not overlap much.
The first is the radio side: live and taped shows on the numbered channels. Those shows book guests every day, often on short notice, and a booking can come together within a week if the news cooperates. The audience is subscribers, many of them listening in the car.
The second is the podcast side. SiriusXM owns a large podcast business, and it has spent big money to sign shows. In January 2024 it signed SmartLess Media to a multiyear deal. In August 2024 it signed Alex Cooper and Call Her Daddy to a deal reported to be worth up to $100 million. In its third-quarter 2026 results, the company said podcast advertising revenue rose 20 percent, which helped offset weaker music-related ad demand. Those podcasts reach listeners on every major app, not only subscribers.
For a guest, this split matters because the bookers are different people with different calendars. A satellite talk show needs a voice for Thursday. A big podcast books further out and wants a story its host has not heard. Decide which side you are pitching before you write a word, and research those shows on their own terms.
Find the producer, not the host
Hosts do not read cold pitches. Producers do. On a daily talk show, a producer or booker fills the segments, preps the host and handles the guest from the first email to the moment the mic opens. That is the person you are writing to.
Richard Strauss, founder of Strauss Radio Strategies, put the first rule in his PR News guide to pitching satellite radio: identify the single contact through whom all pitches for a show flow. Send one pitch to that person. Do not spray the same email to every address you can find at the company.
His second rule saves people weeks. Some shows heard on SiriusXM are not made by SiriusXM. A syndicated program may be produced by an outside company and carried on a channel, so the booker works there, not at SiriusXM. Check who produces the show before you go looking for a name.
To find the producer, start with the show itself. Producers are often thanked or named on air, and many list themselves on LinkedIn with the show title in their headline. Show pages on the SiriusXM app sometimes name the team. Media databases such as Muck Rack carry profiles for SiriusXM shows and channels. Past guests are another source. If an author in your field appeared on Business Radio last spring, their publicist knows who booked it.
Once you have a name, listen to at least three episodes of that show before you write. You are looking for the segment you would fit into, the length of a typical interview, and the questions the host returns to.
The Dial Match: fit your pitch to the right channel
Most rejected SiriusXM pitches are not bad. They are aimed at the wrong show. To prevent that, I run every pitch through a three-part check I call the Dial Match. Picture three knobs on an old radio. Each one has to line up before the pitch goes out.
The first knob is the Channel. Does the channel’s audience already care about your subject? A founder with a new study on sleep and productivity belongs on Doctor Radio or Business Radio, not on a sports channel, however good the data. Strauss makes the same point: match the guest to a specific audience and tell the producer why the fit works.
The second knob is the Clock. What does the show do with its time? A live daily call-in show, like the physician-hosted programs on Doctor Radio, needs guests who can answer listener questions without notes. A weekly interview show needs one deep conversation. A news-driven politics show needs someone who can react to this morning’s headline. Your pitch has to fit the format, not just the topic.
The third knob is the Host. Why should this specific host talk to you? Andy Cohen’s audience comes for pop culture and gossip. Dan Loney’s Wharton Business Daily was built around professors and executives. A pitch that works for one will fall flat with the other, even if the subject is the same.
Score each knob without flattering yourself. If you cannot write one clear sentence for each, the pitch is not ready, or you have the wrong show. When all three line up, the pitch almost writes itself: this is why your listeners care, this is how I fit your format, and this is why your host is the one to ask me.
What does a SiriusXM producer want from a guest?
A producer wants a segment that works for the audience. Everything else is secondary.
Peter Thiele, who writes about news and talk radio for Barrett Media, gave hosts some blunt advice about publicists in a 2023 column: “Do not do the interview for the guest or publicist, do it for your audience.” Read that line from the producer’s chair. They are screening out guests who only want to sell something. If your pitch reads like an ad for your book or product, it goes in the same pile.
What gets through is a guest who brings something the listener cannot get elsewhere. That might be expertise the host does not have, original data, a personal story with stakes, or a sharp take on a story already in the news. The product can come up. It should not be the reason for the segment.
Producers also want low risk. They want a guest who shows up on time, has a clean audio setup for remote interviews, answers in short spoken sentences and does not need the host to drag the story out of them. Anything you can show them in advance, such as a past radio clip or a podcast appearance, lowers that risk.
Write the pitch a booker can say yes to
Keep the pitch short enough to read on a phone. A producer should understand the segment from the subject line and the first two sentences.
Open with the segment, not your biography. Write the headline the host would read on air. Then give the reason it matters now: a news hook, a date, a new study, a trend this show has already covered. Then give the proof that you are the person to discuss it, in one or two sentences. Close with the logistics: your availability this week, whether you can do it live or taped, and a link to a recent audio or video clip.
Name the show in the first line and refer to something it aired in the last few weeks. That one detail tells the producer you passed the Dial Match on purpose. Offer two or three questions the host could ask, since that helps a busy producer picture the segment, but expect the host to ignore them and ask their own.
Follow up once, about a week later, with something new: a fresh news peg or a new data point. If you hear nothing after that, move to the next show on your list. Producers remember the guests who were easy to work with, and they remember the ones who chased them for a month.
Getting your own show is a different game
Guest spots and hosting deals run through different doors. SiriusXM hosts tend to arrive with an audience already attached, built somewhere else.
Andrew Wilkow is the radio version of that story. As Barrett Media recounted in February 2026, he had 45 to 90 seconds between songs on a Hartford rock station to give his political opinions. After 9/11, those short bits caught the attention of WABC in New York, which tried him out as a weekend fill-in host. He earned his own WABC show and joined SiriusXM in 2006. He still hosts The Wilkow Majority on weekdays at noon Eastern.
Scott Kaplan’s route ran through podcasting. He had co-hosted Kaplan and Crew on YouTube and as a podcast since 2019. In July 2024 the show joined SiriusXM’s SportsGrid Radio lineup, airing weekdays from 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern. Kaplan told Barrett Media he had wanted a national platform for more than 25 years.
Megyn Kelly built a podcast audience in nine months and then took it to radio. The pattern across all three is the same. SiriusXM signs hosts whose audience it can see. If you want your own show, build the audience first, in a podcast, on YouTube or in local radio, and make it measurable. Then the conversation is about distribution, not a favor.
Prepare like it is live, because it is
Many SiriusXM interviews are live, and the ones that are taped often air with little editing. Prepare as if every word will go out.
Know the host’s format and the length of your segment. Write three points you want to land and say each one out loud until it fits in under 30 seconds. Have one specific story or number ready for each point. On a call-in show, expect a listener question you did not plan for, and answer it in plain words. If you are calling in from home or the office, use a wired headset, test your line before the producer calls, and sit somewhere quiet.
After the segment, thank the producer by email within a day. Send any link or resource you mentioned on air. Then ask whether the show has a recurring need you could fill, such as a monthly market update or a seasonal health topic. Recurring guests are how a single booking turns into a relationship.
Here is your next step. Open the SiriusXM channel guide today and write down three talk shows where your subject already fits. Listen to three episodes of each this week. Run each show through the Dial Match, and for every show that passes all three knobs, find the producer’s name and draft a five-sentence pitch tied to something that show aired in the last month. That list of three pitches is how to get on SiriusXM, one producer at a time.