RSSSirius Shows Continued Strength
By Ed Oswald | Published November 8, 2006, 1:55 PM
Although XM may be moving faster towards profitability, Sirius is quickly catching up to its bigger rival in terms of subscribers. In separate earnings releases, the two satellite radio companies showed improving financials, and both said they could attain positive cash flow in the fourth quarter.
Sirius increased revenue by 150 percent to $167 million, although posted a $162.9 million loss for the quarter. That was down from $180.4 million in the year ago quarter. XM posted revenue of $240 million, up 57 percent while posting a loss of $84 million, down 36 percent from a year ago.
In terms of subscribers, Sirius ended with 5,119,308 subscribers, 135 percent increase year over year. XM said it had 7,185,873 subscribers, up 43 percent year over year. This margin will likely shrink in the fourth quarter, with Sirius expecting to end the year with 6.3 million subscribers, compared to 7.7 to 7.9 million for XM.
"Sirius has never been in a stronger position heading into the key fourth quarter holiday season, with exciting new products, compelling programming, and strong relationships with our retail and exclusive OEM partners," boasted CEO Mel Karmazin.
And indeed it hasn't: over the last year Sirius has increased its share of new satellite customers by a stunning 24 percentage points -- a jump many would credit to the company's aggressive push for programming and talent.
I would have subscribed to Sirius, but they did what I knew they would do and that's run commercials. Why should ANYONE pay for a commercial service? I want ads in my satellite radio about as much as I want ads in my software programs.
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|Commercials on what? All of the music channels on SIRIUS are commercial free. The news and other channels are just feeds from CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. and they have always had commercials. I don't know how you could run those channels without.
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|You are confused my friend. All the music channels are commercial free. The only channels that have commercials are the talk feeds and the feeds that Sirius has no control over. XM has the same exact configuration.
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|Howard! Howard! Howard! Howard!
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|I personally like Sirius better for Music but I find myself listening to nothing but Sirius' NFL channel 124, probobly cause Im a football junky! Ive been watching this stock for a couple months now and I think this is goign to skyrocket soon, but the only worry I have is that HD radio is starting to pickup.... competition is never good!
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|HD radio is just glorified FM radio. HD radio will still have the same amount of commericals, as well as the familiar bleeped-out lyrics and static when you get too far away from the tower.
If i'm satellite radio, i'd be worried about ipods and other mp3 players instead of HD. With mp3 players, there's only a one-time fee (compared to monthly fees of satellite) and the listeners can choose what they want to hear. If they want to hear 27 consecutive songs by the same artist, they can. Not so on satellite radio.
There's already over 12 million subscriptions sold by satellite radio. Those people aren't going back to HD radio.
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|Howard Stern rules, and Sirius would never be where there are today without him. Sirius rules in sports, the only sport they won't have in 2007 is MLB. Nextel Cup is leaving XM to move to Sirius in 2007. XM has commercials on music channels, so why would somebody want to pay for XM radio?
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|Howard is lame. Phil Hendrie rules!
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|XM lost this fight when it added commercials to its music channels. Oh, and the demo for gadgets like this is NOT the same as Oprah...
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|I've had XM for over 2 years and Sirius for 1 year. XM and Sirius both have commercials on SOME of their channels, please don't be blind (deaf in this case). They also have NON-commercial music channels, which is the majority of their channels. Out of the 2 services I would highly recommend XM because of their diversity in line-up and because they actually have LIVE portable units.
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|Sirius has live units. And....their units are not under FCC investigation. XM will eventually be absorbed by Sirius. Howard and the NFL/College Football coverage both rock!!
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|Sirius-X
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|SIRIUS stilleto is not only live and portable - it does something XM units don't, it'll receive a live SIRIUS feed using WiFi. So, I've been able to make my Stilleto work in the BASEMENT of the gym where I go to, so I can sit and walk the treadmill, inside, at the bottom of a 4 story building. Try that with XM.
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