Colleges are expressing interest in possible noncom channels that would be set aside in a merger of XM and Sirius.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Freedman, a communications official at George Washington University and a former CBS Radio Network news official, e-mailed XM this month proposing two channels that the university would lead; one would offer lectures and events from Washington-area cultural institutions, such as the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress.
The other would be a channel like C-Span, but with lectures from universities rather than congressional proceedings. According to the publication, Freedman tentatively referred to the channel as “U-Span.”
The university now produces three shows for XM.
The Chronicle of Higher Education also quoted the executive director of KEXP(FM) at the University of Washington in Seattle saying his organization was interested in providing content. “We’ll be following this closely,” he told the publication.
