spacetoday.net: XM director resigns after widening loss

Posted: Fri, Feb 17, 2006, 7:55 AM ET (1255 GMT)
A member of the board of directors of XM Satellite Radio resigned Thursday after the company reported a larger-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter. XM reported a net loss of $268.3 million on $177 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2005, and a full-year net loss of $666.7 million on revenues of $558.3 million. The company said growing marketing and customer acquisition costs led to the larger loss. Those financial results let one member of the company's board, Pierce J. Roberts Jr., to resign. Roberts said he was "troubled" by the company's financial situation and that the company needed to make major changes to avoid "a significant chance of a crisis." XM officials brushed off Roberts' concerns, saying that the company was on track to reach cash-flow breakeven by the end of this year. XM finished 2005 with just under six million subscribers, far ahead of satellite radio rival Sirius, and plans to have nine million subscribers by the end of this year.