Dylan draws about 1.7 million listeners on XM Satellite Radio

via OrbitCast

This is pretty interesting. An article in today's Washington Times highlights the draw to Bob Dylan's show on XM Satellite Radio:

Rock legend Bob Dylan draws about 1.7 million listeners on XM Satellite Radio, making his weekly show one of the most popular that the subscription service offers, said XM President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh Panero.

Washington-based XM has more than 6 million subscribers. Mr. Panero would not tell us which programs draw the biggest audience on a daily basis, but he did say that "The Opie & Anthony Show," along with XM's comedy and news channels, tend to be the most popular.

Now, neither XM or SIRIUS expose the number of listeners for each of their channels. It's unfortunate because us fanboys would love to sit there and pick over any of these numbers - but then again, it's competitive intelligence. As long as no one is talking, why show your hand? (It would also serve as great market research for terrestrial radio.)

But XM has shown us a glimpse, here's the breakdown:

Total number of XM Radio Listeners* - 13.6 million
XM's The '70s - 2.1 million listeners
XM's The '80s - 1.9 million listeners
XM's 20-on-20 - 1.8 million listeners

* Yes, "listeners" are different than "subscribers"

So... after seeing those numbers, knowing that Theme Time Radio Hour is bringing in about 1.7 million XM listeners is pretty damn impressive indeed.

[Washington Times]