Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is facing backlash from fellow comics who claim his takeover of SiriusXM’s Raw Comedy channel is harming up-and-coming talent, as reported earlier by Deadline. Many established comics, including Patton Oswalt and Margaret Cho, have posted videos online calling on Maniscalco to carry on Raw Comedy’s legacy by highlighting newer comedians on his channel, instead of mostly focusing on well-known ones.
The widespread criticism comes as Stand Up for Standup, a nonprofit organization that provides resources for comedians in need, published a report about the channel’s shift away from emerging talent, who rely not only on the visibility they receive from appearing on the station, but also on the royalties they earn from SiriusXM. The organization says that since March, the spins on Maniscalco’s channels have decreased from a wider net of more than 800 comics to a much narrower pool of 275 artists, largely skewed toward celebrities.
“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,” Stand Up for Standup says.
“There’s a lot of up-and-coming comedians who are depending on the money and the checks that they get from Sirius,” Oswalt says in an Instagram video. “But 500 of them have been booted off of Sirius… You can easily reverse this decision. Get those young comedians back on the Sirius channel. Let them get those checks.” Many other comedians, including Liz Miele, Kyle Kinane, and Michelle Wolf, have called out Maniscalco as well.
In a statement to Deadline, SiriusXM says Maniscalco’s channel “introduced a new creative direction and a regularly evolving programming mix for the channel,” adding that “SiriusXM continues to invest in comedians more than any other audio platform.” Neither SiriusXM nor representatives for Maniscalco immediately responded to The Verge’s request for comment.
