Broadcast area United States
Canada | First air date April 17, 2006 | |
Slogan An Escape Into Tranquility Frequency Sirius XM Radio 69
DISH Network 6069 Format Beautiful Music/Easy Listening Class Satellite Radio Station | ||
Escape is a Sirius XM Satellite Radio music channel, available on XM channel 69, Sirius channel 69 and DISH Network channel 6069, as well as online and via a mobile app.
Escape features a beautiful music format, described as "Easy, Instrumental and vocal favorites and the great popular melodies popular over the last sixty years", and plays a music from such instrumental artists as Henry Mancini, Chet Atkins, Bert Kaempfert, Richard Clayderman, Ferrante & Teicher, Geoff Love, Jackie Gleason, Andre Kostelanetz, Paul Mauriat, and Percy Faith, as well as vocalists such as Andy Williams, Anne Murray, Barry Manilow, Perry Como, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand and The Carpenters.
XM had previously featured the beautiful music format on Sunny, channel 24. In early 2006, the Sunny channel, which was owned by Clear Channel Communications, changed formats and started airing commercial interruptions as the result of an arbitration settlement with Clear Channel. Due to the format change of Sunny and the commercial interruptions, XM created the Escape channel (channel 78, prior to the Sirius-XM merger, and channel 28 after) as a commercial-free beautiful music channel. After the merger with Sirius in 2008, Escape started incorporating more vocal tracks into its playlist (to compensate for the loss of Sirius' more soft-AC based Movin' Easy channel), but these were reduced after complaints.
As of February 9, 2010, DirecTV dropped Sirius XM programming in favor of SonicTap.
Escape has occasionally been pre-empted in favor of special programming, as for a seasonal "Radio Hanukkah" format in 2009 and 2010, and a "Live Rock Labor Day Weekend" format in 2010.
On August 13, 2015, Escape was dropped from radios and DISH Network and became available only on channel 751, accessible to online users, and to users of the SiriusXM mobile application through a special subscription. Longtime channel program director Marlin Taylor, a veteran beautiful music programmer for many stations and program syndicators such as Bonneville, retired shortly afterward. Escape was restored to the satellite lineup on channel 69 September 15, 2015 (on XM-based radios) and October 7, 2015 (on Sirius-based radios). It returned to the DISH Network lineup on November 12, 2015.