End of an era: Opie Radio out at SiriusXM

After 13 years, there’s no more Opie or Anthony on SiriusXM satellite radio.

Almost three years to the day after firing Anthony Cumia, SiriusXM fired Opie (Gregg Hughes) this week.

“SiriusXM confirms it has terminated its relationship with Gregg ‘Opie’ Hughes, host of the ‘Opie Radio Show’ weekday afternoons on the Faction Talk channel. SiriusXM does not publicly discuss internal personnel issues.”

SiriusXM had dropped the OpieRadio channel name in January, rebranding it as Faction Talk, with Jim Norton and Sam Roberts taking over mornings, and Opie moving to afternoons. Norton had started as the third mic for Opie and Anthony in 2000, while Roberts started as an intern for Opie & Anthony in 2005 before becoming that show’s producer.

Apparently, Opie had finally executed one prank too many.

There’s been rampant speculation among O&A fans that Opie may join Anthony’s Compound Media, but all Opie would say so far over the Fourth of July holiday was that his own radio show would return somewhere, sometime soon.

Opie & Anthony helped dozens of stand-up comedians reach a much wider audience thanks to their terrestrial and satellite reach across America from 2004-2014.

In 2017, Opie had been joined in the afternoons by regular visits from comedians Sherrod Small, Vic Henley and Chris DiStefano, plus assorted other daily guests.

Here’s the most recent long video Opie posted to his YouTube from last week, with guest Doug Benson:

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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