Dish Network's Subscriber Losses Accelerate -- 2nd Update
November 09 2015 - 4:07PM
Dow Jones News
By Ezequiel Minaya And Shalini Ramachandran
Dish Network Corp. said Monday that its pay-TV subscriber losses
accelerated in the third quarter, although its profit topped Wall
Street expectations.
Dish said it lost 23,000 net pay-TV subscribers in the quarter,
compared with a loss of 12,000 a year earlier.
Because Dish reports a combined number for its Sling TV and
satellite TV customers, its results offer little clarity on how
fast the $20-a-month Sling TV streaming service is growing or how
quickly the traditional business is declining. Wells Fargo and Wall
Street research firm MoffettNathanson LLC pegged Sling TV additions
in the 150,000 range, with satellite TV drop-offs exceeding
170,000.
On a conference call with analysts, Dish Chief Executive Charlie
Ergen expressed optimism that Sling TV additions will eventually
offset satellite TV's decline. "We hope that our subscriber counts
grow positive in the future as opposed to negative," Mr. Ergen
said.
Industrywide, traditional pay-TV's net losses accelerated in the
third quarter to 357,000 customers from 184,000 in the year-ago
period, according to MoffettNathanson. The results are unlikely to
calm investors' fears after some media companies lowered their
profit forecasts and admitted pressure on their lucrative
television businesses in recent quarters.
Mr. Ergen on Monday highlighted Sling TV as a way for media
companies that are worried about cord-cutting to "put the genie
back in the bottle" by licensing content to a traditional pay-TV
partner instead of Netflix and its ilk.
At the end of the third quarter, Dish's pay-TV service had
13.909 million subscribers, down about 1% from 14.041 million a
year earlier. MoffettNathanson estimated that Sling TV had about
394,000 subscribers at the end of the quarter.
Average monthly revenue per subscriber rose to $86.33 from
$84.39 a year earlier. Its churn rate, or the rate at which
subscribers canceled service, grew to 1.86% from 1.67% a year
ago.
Overall, the company posted a profit of $196 million, or 42
cents a share, up from $146 million, or 31 cents a share, a year
earlier.
Revenue inched up 1.4% to $3.73 billion.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast per-share earnings
at 39 cents a share on revenue of $3.79 billion.
Dish shares fell 1.5% to $62.79 in mid-afternoon trading.
Write to Ezequiel Minaya at ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com and Shalini
Ramachandran at shalini.ramachandran@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 09, 2015 15:52 ET (20:52 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
DISH Network (NASDAQ:DISH)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
DISH Network (NASDAQ:DISH)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024