Oct. 8, 2026

Sebastian Maniscalco Responds to Comedian Controversy

Show Notes
Transcript

Sebastian Maniscalco issues a statement supporting comedians, denying responsibility for removing Raw Comedy, and saying he will work with the company to highlight a variety of stand-up voices but needs time to build out the channel.

00:00 Sebastian Responds
01:19 Steinbrenner Lesson
03:05 ABC Rotation Explained
08:11 LA Times Essay Reaction
09:36 Working Comics Matter
11:13 SNL and Cracked Take

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Kalaroga Shark Media. Sebastian Maniscalco has addressed Raw Dog 8,

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as I'm calling it. Let's start with Sebastian, then I

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have a lot of thoughts and I want to go slowly.

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Here's Sebastian Maniscalco.

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This goes out to all my fellow comedians. I want

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to let you know that I heard you. I support you.

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I love you. I know how hard the grind is.

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Believe me, I've been there. But I wanted to let

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you know that I had nothing to do with removing

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the raw comedy from SiriusXM. That was a SiriusXM decision.

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But I also want to let you know that I'm

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going to work with SiriusXM to highlight a variety of

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different voices in stand-up comedy, from emerging to established to

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newcomers and everything in between. I just ask that you

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give me a little time, guys. I just got here,

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and I needed a little time to build out the channel.

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So I just want to let you know that I

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heard you and just give me some time and be

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patient and I think you'll like the result. God bless everybody.

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Please give me one second to do some quick housekeeping.

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I didn't address this this morning for reasons I've said

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on the podcast. I was out of pocket yesterday and

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I teach a class on Thursday morning. It is now

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137 in the afternoon and I just had a chance

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to take in all the latest. As for, let me

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go up a level. We're going to go slowly today.

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My old mentor taught me about, he called it Steinbrenner,

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and here's what he meant by this. Back in the day,

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George Steinbrenner owned the New York Yankees, and George Steinbrenner

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would react to things and make trades and give players

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to the manager that maybe the manager didn't want. What

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my old mentor meant by that was, from afar, it's

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easy to nitpick a radio station and be like, this

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station sucks, the boss is stupid, why aren't they doing X?

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And what you don't know sometimes is what information you

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don't have. Maybe my old mentor knew that, oh, this

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talent is better than that talent. I should have that

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talent on in the afternoon. He knows this. You guys

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are on message boards saying, oh, the radio station sucks.

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Why are they so stupid? But what you don't know

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is that Steinbrenner gave somebody a three year million dollar contract.

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And if somebody has a three year million dollar contract,

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they're going to play in the outfield or they're going

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to host afternoon drive. So as we pick this apart here,

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there may be information we don't have. There might not be,

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but there may be just information we don't have. Let's

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start with Sebastian's, is it an apology statement? It's not

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an apology. It's a statement. He needs some time. Sebastian,

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I don't think so. The channel was announced in April.

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Today is October 8th. What time do you need? For

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newer listeners discovering this podcast through this topic, I programmed

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the Raw Dog channel from 2004 to 2014. I did

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the logs. Maybe not every day, but I'm pretty confident

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I did more than 90% of the logs day to

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day for most of that time until I got promoted

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to VP, then somebody else on my staff did it.

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But I'm very familiar with how Raw Dog was programmed

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2004 to 2014 because I was in charge of the rotations.

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Let me walk you through very quickly... at a top level,

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how I teach it to college students. And I did

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this briefly the other day, but I want to go

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longer here.

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Okay.

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We're going to have a bucket of comedians. We can

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play any comedian in the world. What we're going to

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do is we're going to make three buckets. We'll call

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the buckets A, B, and C. The letters don't mean anything.

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It can be X, Y, Z, red, white, blue, whatever

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you want, but let's call it A, B, C. In

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bucket A, I'm going to have a smaller bucket of

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comedians and In my case, when I would program, that

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would be the hits. So in 2008, maybe the hits

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were Dane Cook and Jeff Dunham. If I were programming

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a channel today using an ABC rotation, maybe Shane Gillis,

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Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle would be in the A's. The

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B bucket is a bigger bucket. In that bucket, I

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personally would have people like Liz Mealy, Gianmarco Cerezi, whoever

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you think today's comedians are that aren't household names but

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are awesome comedians. They would go in the B category.

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And there would be more B's than A's because as

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people circle in and out of getting into their car

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or listening to stuff, I would want them to hear

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the hits. I want them to tune into my station

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and be like, oh, they play Dave Chappelle. They play

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Shane Gillis. I know those guys. But along the way,

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once you've bought in, the next clip comes on and

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you go, oh, who's this funny woman? I don't know

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who that is. And then you learn that you like

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a Liz Mealy. You learn that you like a Gianmarco

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Ceresi or whoever you like these days. Then you could

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have a C category with older stuff. And that's where

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I might put George Carlin or Joan Rivers or even

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a Bob Hope. And honestly, I saw a playlist the

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other day. They had two cuts from each other, Andrew

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Schultz and Bob Hope. I'm not sure Bob Hope belongs

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on this station at all. And I love Bob Hope.

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I talked about that already. OK, so Sebastian says he

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needs time. Unless someone deleted the clips from the system,

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and they may have, and this is where I say Steinbrenner,

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I don't know. I also don't know what they're using

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to schedule records or sound recordings is the term. I

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don't know what they're using these days. I haven't asked anybody.

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I haven't listened to Raw Dog since I was asked

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to no longer program Raw Dog. Someone else has done it. Sure,

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they've done a good job. Not here to bash on them.

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Unless someone deleted the clips, and I can't think of

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a reason why you would delete the clips, I... You

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can just schedule them as inactive. So back to ABC,

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let's have a category called Rest for R. If you

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don't want to play all these comedians that aren't currently

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being played, you could just move them to R and

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let them sit there and never schedule an R record.

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Maybe they were all deleted. If they were deleted, then

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you're going to have to put back in the metadata

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and it's going to take a minute. If they haven't

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been deleted, if they're still in the system... If Sebastian

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Maniscalco called me up and said, hey, as of tomorrow,

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can you add a new category? We'll call it Z.

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And can you put all these working class comedians, as

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we're calling them, can you put them back on the

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clock and add a couple Zs every hour? Three, four Zs,

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eight Zs, whatever amount of Zs Sebastian wants. I could

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easily do that in 2013 with the technology I had

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in 2013. Again, to be fair to the Steinbrenners, I

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don't know what they have or don't. Just telling you

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in 2013, if Sebastian called me and said, I want

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this fixed tomorrow, I I could fix it tomorrow. The

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more I think about this, I suspect there was a

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meeting and it went something like this. Hey, Sebastian, what

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comedians do you like? You know, I like all the greats.

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I like Carlin and Joan Rivers and, you know, more

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contemporary guys like Norm Macdonald was great. And, you know,

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maybe he mentioned some comedians he was into. And I

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think just looking at this from afar. Someone took that

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as gospel and made that the playlist. That's just a

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guess from a guy in a basement recording a podcast.

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An insider at SiriusXM tells Entertainment Weekly that programming on

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all channels is ever-evolving and Maniscalco's is no different. Comics

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at all levels are consistently being added. And those who

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may have found themselves out of rotation on Sebastian Maniscalco

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Comedy Radio can likely be heard on other SiriusXM comedy channels.

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I haven't listened to SiriusXM. I have no idea what's

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on the other comedy channels. Specific to comedians consistently being

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added and deleted? Absolutely. I did that all the time.

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Maybe once a week-ish. When new stuff came in, we

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added it. As stuff got tired, if a new hot

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comedian came along, we would move them to A. Things

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would move from the A category to the B category.

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You would rest things, rotate things in and out to

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keep the station fresh. That's totally normal. A spokesperson tells

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Deadline in an exclusive statement, quote, Sirius XM has proudly

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supported the comedy community, and we've been listening to comedians

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speak out this week. Our decision to end raw comedy

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was due to the channel's underperformance and came prior to

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Sebastian joining the Sirius XM lineup. While the challenges facing

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working comedians are bigger than any one person or decision,

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we remain committed, as we have for more than two decades,

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to making Sirius XM and Sebastian Maniscalco's comedy radio a

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place where comedians at every stage of their careers can

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be heard. At some point, somebody, whether it's Sebastian or

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a programmer or was me, someone is deciding, hey, I

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want to play this comedian or I don't want to

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play this comedian. And if you choose not to play

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the comedian, that comedian doesn't get royalties. I'm not sure

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that is Sebastian's problem. I hear you and I understand

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why it was important, but I'm not sure that was

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really his problem. Let's take a break there and I'll

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come back. There's an essay in the LA Times. Let

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me just do some quick housekeeping. As I mentioned, I

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had a very busy Wednesday, which is why I didn't

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discuss this this morning and didn't discuss it until now.

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I also don't think I'll talk about it on the

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Friday podcast. I still haven't put that together. Maybe I'll

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find a couple of new stories. I don't know. And

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I also kind of want to get off this topic

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because I'm torn here because I'm close to it because

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I kind of know how it works. I'm not looking

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to get in a whistling match with Sebastian or whoever's

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programming the channel now. I actually don't know who programs

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the channel now. Again, you're asking me to comment on

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my ex-girlfriend and. My ex-girlfriend is out there somewhere being happy,

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and I'm happy in my life, and I don't think

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about her, and it's all good. That's why I don't

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want to really dive in on this. But when every

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major comedian is putting out a video, and I host

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a podcast called Daily Comedy News, I kind of have

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to talk about it. So that's where I am with this,

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and I've just had a very busy week, but I

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do want to just address that Sebastian addressed it, which

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is why today's bonus episode. Okay, from the LA Times,

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an essay from Christina Catherine Martinez. She writes... Setting aside

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any appeal about the lives of working comics, squeezing out

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the middle class of any industry is its death knell.

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The consolidation of voices at the top kettles the audience

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into a dead end of diminishing options until we're all

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paying $ 500 to hear a Gen Xer with the complexion

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of a vintage handbag stomp around in an arena, spouting

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the vaguest outline of a worldview, and we'll be fooled

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into believing that's the best or worst thing comedy has

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to offer. Without getting into the nuance of her opinion there,

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I think spiritually, we are aligned. I... I don't know

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why you wouldn't want to play the comedians that I've named, checked,

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and the working class comedians. I think that's the interesting part.

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I host on the Live One app a weekly program

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called The Weekly Comedy Thing, and every week I play,

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I go out of my way to do a segment of,

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here are some comedians you might not know. And as

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I've hosted that show for over a decade, at one point,

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one of the comedians you didn't know was a guy

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named Sebastian Maniscalco. One of the comedians you didn't know

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is a guy named Nate Bergetzi and so on and

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so on. I go in, I see what is in

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the new release bin, as I call it, and I

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try and play people like that. I think that's the

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interesting part. It's very easy to go, here's Chris Rock. Sure.

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And Chris Rock is great. But to me, the interesting

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part are the working class comedians. That LA Times also

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quotes a post from Nick Vetterod, who wrote, Sebastian's so busy,

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I'd be surprised if he even knew he has an

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XM channel. I wouldn't go that far, but I bet

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he was quite surprised to find out that he was

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dragged into this, because I can't believe Sebastian woke up

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and said, yeah, I don't want to play those working

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class comedians anymore. Get them off my channel. Again, I

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think he just said, yeah, you know, I like Carlin

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and the Greats, and somebody took that as gospel. Would

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be my guess, back to my Steinbrenner point, I don't know.

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That same piece in the LA Times quotes comedian Jasmine Ellis,

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who said, The beauty of the Raw channel is that

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it was kind of this catch-all for people who didn't

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fit neatly into the other categories. Raw was a channel

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dedicated to people who were focused on the art form

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of stand-up without restrictions. When I programmed the channel, it

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was called Raw Dog Comedy Uncensored. It's all right there

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for you. That's all you need to know. Cracked wondered,

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what will the Sebastian Maniscalco drama mean for Marcelo Hernandez?

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I'm not going to get into my opinions on Marcelo

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Hernandez being funny or not. Look, this is too small

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for Saturday Night Live to deal with. They're not going

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to deal with it. SNL doesn't need to get involved

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in this controversy. So if there was any chance of

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Sebastian hosting SNL in the relatively near future, that ain't

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going to happen yet. But again, Shane Gillis is hosting

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this week. Give anything time. Cracked wrote that the ongoing

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controversy is pretty inside baseball for a show that caters

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to an audience of roughly 8 million viewers per episode.

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This did hit my wife's radar. Now, my wife is

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married to me, so maybe she paid more attention to

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it than if I were a dentist. I don't know.

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But my wife was aware of this. So this is

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somewhat out there, but I do think it's too small

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for SNL. Cracked also said the Maniscalco sketches from last

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season hit so hard because Maniscalco is completely irrelevant to

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the premise. Then there's the issue of SNL's legendary fence-sitting.

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Speaking out against one of the most powerful broadcasting corporations

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and an internationally beloved comic over a business decision doesn't

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really seem like a Lorne Michaels move. I think Cracked

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has nailed that there. And that is your bonus episode

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for Thursday. We'll be back in the morning again. If

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you're just discovering this podcast through this, welcome. I put

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out an episode seven days a week. I hope you

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will continue to listen. And as this story develops, I

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will address it as needed. See you in the morning.