# Radio Margaritaville

Radio Margaritaville is a worldwide Internet radio station and SiriusXM Satellite Radio station (Ch. 24) owned by the estate of Jimmy Buffett. It features 24-hour music and live broadcasts of Jimmy Buffett's concerts.

## History

Buffett was inspired to create Radio Margaritaville after listening to radio stations in Australia, Key West, and to WOYS in Apalachicola, Florida. He was attracted to the channels' wide range of programming, as opposed to the homogenized playlists he heard elsewhere. He contacted an old friend, Steve Huntington, who agreed to leave terrestrial radio to serve as program director for Buffett's new venture. "When we first started talking about this, we didn't know the Internet would be the route," Huntington said in a 2001 interview. "We figured it would be done in syndication or something. But we started doing some shows on the main Margaritaville site in 1998 and the response was very good." Buffett modeled the channel after pirate radio stations in terms of having no restrictions on what songs to play. It also recalled free-form FM radio of the 1970s with diverse playlists featuring music in the rock, jazz, blues, and folk genres. By 2002, Radio Margaritaville was one of the most popular Internet stations, though it had yet to build an audience that would rival small-market radio stations.
Radio Margaritaville joined Sirius Satellite Radio in 2005 on channel 31 (moving to XM 24 May 4, 2011) and Dish Network channel 6031. It became the first internet station to transition to mainstream radio, and can also be heard on radio. On November 12, 2008, following the merger of Sirius and XM Radio, the station was added to the XM lineup at channel 55 (moving to XM 24 May 4, 2011). Radio Margaritaville's program director is Kirsten Winquist and the General Manager is Coleman Sisson. On air talent consists of hosts Kirsten Winquist (VP Programming), Sara West, Jasmine Shinness, Renee Adams, JD Spradlin and Krystal King. The station is broadcast from The Margaritaville Resort locations in Orlando and Nashville. Radio Margaritaville now has a stinger often heard between songs of a steel drum with a few notes of "Margaritaville", adding to station identity.
SiriusXM's station, "The Highway," added a Friday afternoon-drive program, Music Row Happy Hour, to its lineup in 2016. Hosted by Buzz Brainard, the show is broadcast from the Margaritaville Restaurant in Nashville and has featured visits from such artists as Brett Eldredge, Maren Morris, and Blake Shelton. The show "created a natural cross-promotion with Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville channel." As of August 2017, Radio Margaritaville averages three million unique listeners a week.
Buffett died September 1, 2023; the service was still operational at the time.

## Artists played

* Jimmy Buffett
* Mac McAnally
* Jack Johnson
* Kenny Chesney
* Sheryl Crow
* The Beach Boys
* Zac Brown Band
* Bob Marley
* Toots and the Maytals
* Little Feat
* Paul Simon
* UB40
* Jerry Jeff Walker
* Alan Jackson
* Toucans Steel Drum Band
* Crowded House
* Steve Goodman
* John Hiatt
* Lyle Lovett
* James Taylor
* Livingston Taylor
* Keith Sykes
* Sonny Landreth
* The Boat Drunks
* Sunny Jim White
* Bob Dylan
* Tom Petty
* Chuck Berry
* Garth Brooks
* The Neville Brothers
* Allen Toussaint
* Jan and Dean
* The Eagles
* Warren Zevon
* Steve Miller Band
* Pink Martini
* Buena Vista Social Club
* Sam Cooke
* Otis Redding
* Los Lonely Boys
* The Allman Brothers Band
* George Strait
* The Swingin' Medallions
* The Tams
* The Embers
* John Mayer
* Jesse Winchester
* Club Trini
* Keith Urban
* Jeff Bridges
* Third World