(Associated Press via NewsEdge) XM Satellite Radio, which last week announced plans to combine with rival Sirius, said a 45% jump in revenue and a tighter leash on marketing costs helped narrow its fourth-quarter loss.
The Washington-based company, which has never reported a profit, said it lost $263.1 million, after paying preferred dividends in the final three months of 2006.
That beat a loss of $270.4 million a year ago.
The fourth-quarter loss includes a one-time charge of $57.6 million to reflect the declining value of XM's 23% stake in Canadian Satellite Radio.
Quarterly revenue increased to $257 million from $177 million a year ago.
XM finished the year with 7.6 million subscribers, a 29% increase from a year ago, when it had 5.9 million. But XM had predicted at the beginning of 2006 that it would have 9 million subscribers at this point.
Subscriptions slowed as smaller competitor Sirius, which added Howard Stern to its programming lineup, took an increasing share of the market, particularly on radios sold through retail outlets as opposed to those installed in automobiles at the assembly plant.
A week ago, XM Satellite and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio announced a deal to combine their operations. The companies bill the deal as a merger of equals, but to make it happen Sirius will be giving $4.57 billion of its stock to XM shareholders.
First, though, the companies must gain approval from the Federal Communications Commission and other regulatory agencies.
© 2007 The Associated Press
© 2007 Dialog, a Thomson business. All rights reserved