Following a weak earnings report from its fiancé XM (NSDQ: XMSR), Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) announced Q1 revs of $270.4 million 33 percent higher than $204 million in the year-ago quarter. Note that XM’s growth rate was only 17 percent. And instead of reporting a growing loss, Sirius slimmed its loss to $104 million (.07 per share) from $144 million ($.10 per share). On an adjusted basis, losses were more than halved to $39 million from $83.9 million. By most metrics, Sirius continues to outperform, though like XM, the revenue number came in on the light end:

-- While XM’s SAC grew in the quarter, Sirius narrowed its to $91 per gross add from $101.
-- Total subscribers grew 31 percent year over year to 8.6 million.
-- ARPU narrowed slightly to $10.09 from $10.10.
-- Churn did tick up to 2.7 percent to 2.3 percent,.

All in all, better than XM, but it would certainly be helpful if the two could stop competing with each other for customers.

Release | Webcast (4:30 ET)

Conference call: Kicking off the Call, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin called the company’s results “good news”, but said it was bad news that it still hadn’t received FCC clearance on its merger. He added merger question marks were causing slowness and confusion at the company’s aftermarket partners. President James Meyer added that the issue is “impeding consumer purchase decisions.”

After a rundown of the operations, Karmazin came back with an angry, but controlled discussion of the delay: “We share the reasonable frustration that our investors feel… as a large shareholder myself, I know how owning a stock that is in deal limbo is not very rewarding. I am optimistic that we are getting close ot the finish line and will be able to close the deal.”

• Earnings: XM Q1 Revs Up 17 Percent; Losses Expand; Estimates Missed As SAC Increases