Posted on 02/16/2006 2:06:45 PM PST by iPod Shuffle
| Washington Business Journal - February 16, 2006 http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/02/13/daily20.html |
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XM Satellite Radio reported sales increases and much higher losses for the fourth quarter several days after director Pierce Roberts Jr. resigned and warned of a "crisis."
The D.C. company's stock price fell 5 percent, or by $1.27, to close at $23.98 Thursday.
The broadcaster generated fourth-quarter sales of $177.1 million, compared with $83.1 million a year earlier and 2005 sales of $558.3 million, compared with $244.4 million in 2004.
Losses widened in the fourth quarter to $268.3 million from $188.2 million in the same period a year earlier. Full-year losses rose to $666.7 million from $642.4 million in 2004.
Roberts said he had raised concerns "in an increasingly vociferous manner" to senior executives without effect.
"There is, in my view, a significant chance of a crisis on the horizon. Even absent a crisis, I believe that XM will inevitably serve its shareholders poorly without major changes now," he wrote in a Feb. 13 resignation letter that the company released Thursday in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
XM (NASDAQ: XMSR) said in its filing that it believes the disagreement with Roberts primarily relates to differences over the strategic balance between growth and profitability. The company said Roberts had argued for lower marketing, programing and promotional expenditures for several years now.
The company reported that customer acquisition costs increased slightly to $64 in 2005 from $62 the year before.
XM finished 2005 with 5.9 million subscribers, having added 898,000 new subs in the fourth quarter, and surpassed the 6 million subscriber mark in the first week of January. XM added more than 2.7 million subscribers in 2005.
The company projects subscription revenue of more than $860 million in 2006, or an almost 55 percent increase. The company said it would achieve positive cash flow from operations by the end of 2006. The broadcaster ended 2005 with $711 million in cash and cash equivalents.
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DirectTV went over to XMRadio a little while ago. Lots of repeats. I mean, how many times can you listen to "Johnny got a Zero" on the 40s channel? The "old" music channels that DirectTV carried was much better than XMRadio - no talking period.
Are there any reliable figures for the number that subscsribed specifically for the Stern show? How long is his contract for?
Your math fails to take into account that they're still losing money on each new subscriber, Stern hype or not.
Stern (and the accompanying hype) may be more about pumping up the price of the stock than anything else.
Simple math. To date, the number of Sirius subscribers directly attributed to Stern number above 600,000. At $13 per month, that translates to about $100 million per year, or $500 million over the five year term of the deal. In short, Stern paid for himself, Sirius got a lot of attention and far more than 600,000 subscriber adds. It was a smart business move.
In contrast, XM's growth has flattened out. XM had a year advantage over Sirius on the exponential growth curve, which explained the difference in audience size until about six months ago. Since that time Sirius has been growing faster than XM. Coupled with a more cost efficient delivery system, and Sirius should be profitable sooner.
And yes, for the record I'm a Sirius subscriber (lifer) and yes I'm annoyed at the loss of Fox News -- especially yesterday with Dick Cheney's interview. Will be interesting to see if Sirius and Fox are able to work things out.
SIRI announces their numbers tommorrow. If they had a significant spike in subs, you can attribute that to Stern.
BTW, I think that both XMSR and SIRI are cash burning machines that are currently overvalued...Not sure that satrad will catch on like cable TV has.
They will generate earnings eventually...just don't know if it will happen before they exhaust their capital....
Heck, they just signed a deal with Oprah for 3 years at $55 million.
"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."
You can say that again!
Horsehockey. The marginal cost of adding a subscriber is zero. So every subscriber add brings them closer to breakeven. Plus, every add also increase their advertising reach, increasing their ad revenue.
Bender, you idiot! Take off that polar bear coat. That's what is killing your reception!
I get fine reception in my FR Command Post... 
Sooooo! Zats ver zat smell comenz fromen... 
Harkens back to the doctom era with the way they spend money. Supposedly, XM has offices that remind one of the Taj Mahal.
Consumers have a lot more choices now than they did with Cable TV. Podcasts, Audible.com (audio books), digital radio (when it comes), WiFi radio (only a matter of time).
The sat radio stocks, with their market caps, are priced like they're already profitable.
Pump and dump, suckers.
The stocks are nothing more than momentum plays....of course, I wish I knew which was SIRI was going tomorrow...LOL
Why in the world would I pay for radio when I listen in the car only and that radio has a scan button?
Uh... because 99% of FM stations are pop/rap/hip hop that have about 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of broadcast, and screaming DJs with stupid contests.
I'd consider satellite radio if it weren't for the fact that I have my own portable radio station in my little iPod.
Like I said. I have a scan button on my radio. It takes me all of 60 seconds to find Rush, Hannity,....whoever....when I'm out traveling.
Pay for radio???
Come on now --
FREE is my favorite price!
if you're an AM radio listener, then I agree that there's little benefit to having satellite radio.
666? Subterranean satellite!
My first thought. XM is the tool of the Devil. Long live free radio!
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