• Adweek, Wednesday, February 28, 2007 11:15 AM

If satellite radio companies Sirius and XM do merge, the combined entity would have almost 3.5% of all radio listening, according to an analysis of Arbitron fall 2006 survey data. The search is the first time the satellite radio audience has been quantified, compared to the total radio audience.

About 5.6% of survey respondents mentioned listening to satellite and the highest audience share captured by a single channel was 0.2%. The average satellite channel had a .009 listening share. But in a bit of good news for terrestrial broadcasters, satellite radio listeners are heavy listeners of all radio and actually spend more time with terrestrial radio than satellite or Internet radio.

Satellite radio listeners spend 14 hours with AM/FM, 10 hours and 45 minutes with satellite radio and 8 hours and 15 minutes with Internet radio. The survey was the first in which Arbitron added instructions in the diary asking respondents to indicate their listening to satellite and Internet radio, in addition to traditional AM and FM radio.

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