SiriusXM radio to start Beatles channel
NEW YORK — SiriusXM satellite radio said Tuesday it will debut a channel devoted to the Beatles later this month, achieving a longsought dream to highlight the music of the pop legends.
The Beatles Channel launches May 18, a week before the band’s newest archival project is released: a box set keyed to the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Backed by the band, the channel will feature music from the Beatles, its members’ solo projects and artists who influenced them. Its suite of programs will include My Fab Four, where other musicians and celebrities talk about their favorite Beatles songs.
“I still remember the thrill of when we first heard our music on the radio, but I don’t think any of us would have imagined that we’ d have our very own Beatles radio channel more than 50 years later,” said Paul McCartney, with Ringo Starr one of the two surviving Beatles. “The SiriusXM channel will have it all, eight days a week.”
SiriusXM has more than a dozen channels branded to specific artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Pitbull and Tom Petty.
The Beatles remained the Holy Grail, and SiriusXM president and chief content officer Scott Greenstein said he made his interest plain with the band’s management years ago. But it was a delicate subject; both McCartney and Starr remain active musicians and have worked with Sirius, and he didn’t want them thinking the satellite network was only interested in their past.
But he said, “The moment came, and you can rest assured that when the moment came, we dove right in.”
Similarly, the band and its management were cooperative once the decision was made that the time was right, he said. Plenty of archival material was made available, including interviews where Beatles had talked about specific songs.
“It will be a channel that will sound shockingly current and alive, not a retrospective jukebox,” Greenstein said.
It will be a channel that will sound shockingly current and alive.” Scott Greenstein, President and chief content officer for SiriusXM