XM Satellite Radio loses $666.7M in 2005

Washington Business Journal ^ | 2/16/06

[peyton randolph]

Gee. Which dog shall I pump my money into? Overinflated real estate speculation? Or overinflated tech stocks?

[Hildy]

Bought this baby at like $3.00 or something and sold two a three weeks ago...did ok.

[LegendHasIt]

Geeze, that's not good.

I really like XM radio (I have 2)... I thought they were supposed to be coming close to breaking even.

Hope they can make it in the long run.

At least they aren't wasting a half billion dollars on that juvenile jerk Howard Stern.

[appleharvey]

At least they aren't wasting a half billion dollars on that juvenile jerk Howard Stern.

If the contract that Stern inked with Sirius is even close to being accurate, can someone explain to me how they can possibly turn a profit even in the long run?

[Tim Long]

667... Neighbor of the Beast.

[wallcrawlr]

...broadcaster ended 2005 with $711 million in cash and cash equivalents

Not chump change

[funkywbr]

Seems like a STERN warning!~}

[dubie]

They are counting on the millions of stern fans to get sirius. I have sirus (2 sets) I like it. I listen to Mike Church, Jerry Doyle, Laura Ingrham, Tammy Bruce etc... They have more sports than XM... I like sirius so far...

[Charlemagne on the Fox]

Seems like a STERN warning!~}

Also sounds Sirius . . .

[B-Chan]

$666.7M... negative return on investment of the Besat.

[B-Chan]

Besat = Beast. I R SPESHUL

[manwiththehands]

I love my XM for the variety and lack of commercials on the music channels ... but they make up for that on the News/Talk channels. It's worse than network TV.

[ContemptofCourt]

If the contract that Stern inked with Sirius is even close to being accurate, can someone explain to me how they can possibly turn a profit even in the long run?

Stern was given $500M....a typical sat subscriber is thought to be worth about $500 total to the company....if Stern brings in 1M new subs, then his contract is paid for.

I'm sure that he has brought in 1M new subs (and SIRI must be as well, as they gave him the stock bonus). All in all, not that bad of a deal for SIRI (if, that is, they can keep from going BK).

[Gunflint]

Hard to imagine a satellite radio co. needs over a billion $ a year just to keep the lights on.

[Uncledave]

I predict they'll start selling ads in 2-3 years. Remember when cable TV had no ads?

[Shethink13]

Stern was given $500M....a typical sat subscriber is thought to be worth about $500 total to the company....if Stern brings in 1M new subs, then his contract is paid for.

That was for this year. What about next year? Do you think another 1 million will sign up? I think Stern got the bulk of his listeners off the bat. Do you disagree?

[bwteim]

Absolutely agree.

[ContemptofCourt]

His total contract was $500M....so he has already paid off. Heck, look at the publicity that SIRI gets out of the deal.