(Reuters) – Sirius XM has struck a deal to carry a new channel produced by Glenn Beck’s media company ‘theBlaze’, featuring conservative talk shows and news programming that begins airing on Monday.
The new channel is the latest effort by Beck, a former Fox News talk show host, to expand his media company which has its roots on the Internet. The channel, dubbed “theBlaze Radio Network”, will be available to Sirius XM’s nearly 24 million subscribers.
Beck’s radio show “The Glenn Beck program” has been available on Sirius XM since May 2010 but this is the first time Beck’s media company will have its own dedicated channel on Sirius XM.
Beck, 49, is known for his conservative leanings and making inflammatory remarks. He has a strong following on radio and signed a $100 million radio deal with Premiere Networks last June.
The Sirius XM channel will carry Beck’s show as well as talk shows by other conservative personalities such as Jay Severin and Doc Thompson. The company will provide hourly news updates on Sirius XM’s conservative news network, which is a separate channel. Financial terms of the agreement with Sirius XM were not disclosed.
Last week, Beck’s company said in a regulatory filing that the company was raising $40 million and that it was generating between $25 million and $100 million per year in revenue.
While it started as an Internet-only channel, Beck’s media network has been making some inroads on television. “TheBlaze” has been available on Dish Network since September 2012. A spokesman for Beck’s company said the network was in talks to be carried by other pay TV companies.
(Reporting By Liana B. Baker- editing by Peter Lauria, Bernard Orr)
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