Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Sirius Satellite quarterly net loss narrows

Sirius Satellite Radio IncXM Satellite Radio

Sirius, whose acquisition of XM still awaits the approval
of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, reported a
first-quarter net loss of $104.1 million, or 7 cents a share,
compared with a net loss of $144.7 million, or 10 cents a
share, a year earlier.

Revenue at Sirius, the satellite radio home of shock jock
Howard Stern and the National Football League, climbed 33
percent to $270.4 million.

Analysts had expected a loss of 7 cents a share, on revenue
of $271.8 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

The New York-based company added 322,534 net subscribers
and ended the quarter with about 8.6 million, up 31 percent
from 6.6 million one year ago.

The cost of adding new customers decreased to $91 for each
gross subscriber from $101 for the first quarter of 2007. The
company attributed the decrease to lower per-unit subsidies and
a higher average retail selling price.

The results come as the two companies await the opinion of
the U.S. Federal Communication Commission, after the U.S.
Department of Justice approved the deal in March. XM and Sirius
hope to convince regulators that the deal would provide
consumers with more choice in radio programming and could lead
to lower prices in some cases.

Shares of Sirius eased to $2.83 after the bell on Monday,
after closing up 14 cents at $2.87 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Franklin Paul, editing by Richard Chang.)

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