I always got the impression that Sirius was looking for a way out after the merger because they thought that O&A was more headaches than they were worth. Not only because of the history of on-air controversies, but also just because of the never-ending amount of HR nightmares they had to deal with behind the scenes. You look back on the old shows, you realize just how much was going on with the other staff members involving their own drama. You had numerous stuff happen with Danny, Erock had an incident with an NDA, interns alleging abuse. Other older interns blamed the show for them not getting work, leading to newer interns applying to Sirius not wanting to work under O&A.
They didn't want a way out (they could just not offer contracts) but they wanted O&A to fall in line with the program - that O&A were going to essentially be just another high profile radio show in the portfolio. They'd get the good guests, get some promos, do some live events, etc - but that was it. Opie always wanted to push it forward and
really wanted to compete with Stern with SXM was never going to allow - doubly so with how much stock they must have given Stern to sign on. Opie
clearly had a strategy as well that XM was slightly warm to but SXM was gave up on.
Sadly for Opie these things just never worked out - the offsite message boards (aka Wackback, the subreddit) were always more trouble then they were worth. The intern drama always caused problems. The comedy tour got a ton of negative press for how shitty the crowds were. Some of the deliberate sabotaging of interviews caused some people to more prominent people to pass on them.
Opie wanted the O&A channel on SXM to be more than the O&A channel. He wanted Ron and Fez on the channel, he wanted Patrice to do his own show (Black Philip), he wanted Bill Burr, Louis CK, etc - he wanted a packed out channel that XM just didn't want to invest in - which if they did, they might still be successful today.
SXM just wanted O&A to do O&A things, do the show, get a few mil, and shut the fuck up (also do not talk to Stern in the elevator like you are friends).