TORONTO – John Bitove will step down as chairman of the board of Sirius XM Canada at its next annual meeting in January, and will be replaced by Tony Viner, current member of the board of directors and audit committee chair, as well as former president of Rogers Media.
The audio entertainment company made the announcement Thursday in conjunction with the release of its fourth quarter and fiscal 2014 year-end results.
"It is hard to believe when we started the process of bringing satellite radio to Canada in 2002 that one day we would grow from zero to 2.6 million subscribers, have more than 15 percent market share of national radio revenues and be one of Canada's strongest and fastest growing media companies," said Bitove, in a statement.
Bitove will remain on the board as a director. The company also announced the new appointments of Christine Magee as chair of the audit committee and chair of the corporate governance committee, as well as the re-appointment of Guy Johnson as chair of the compensation committee, effective their re-election to the board at the company's AGM.
For the year ended August 31, 2014, net income fell 38.6% to $7.48 million on revenues of $303.5 million, which were up 5.1%, reflecting growth in the company's self-paying subscriber base, which was offset, in part, by lower ARPU. Adjusted EBITDA of $79.0 million increased 15% from $68.7 million last year.
For the fourth quarter, revenue was up 1.8% to $77.1 million year-over-year, net income grew 8.6% to $4.4 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $16.6 million was flat compared to Q4 FY2013.
Sirius XM Canada saw self-paying subscribers increase 7.2% from 1.72 million last year to 1.85 million this quarter, bringing its total subscriber base to 2.61 million.
"Fiscal 2014 was marked by strong financial and operational performance," said president and CEO Mark Redmond, in the news release. "Our milestone subscriber count of 2.6 million, record revenue and commitment to carefully managing costs, translated into our third consecutive year of double-digit Adjusted EBITDA growth.
Our success in fiscal 2014 underscores our ability to drive profitable top-line growth. We added 184,500 net new subscribers, despite the challenges of an increasingly crowded audio entertainment market. Heading into fiscal 2015, we will work to deliver further revenue growth, while continuing to generate strong Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow."
