Dish Network Highlights Sling TV Subscribers as Pay-TV Declines

By Imani Moise

Dish Network Corp. disclosed how many Sling TV subscribers it has for the first time as the company looks to assure investors it can grow in new businesses while customers continue to drop their traditional cable packages.

On Wednesday the company said Sling TV, its online-only pay-TV package, had 2.2 million subscribers. As of December, several analysts estimated that the service had well over 1 million paying subscribers.

Dish launched the streaming service over two years ago in an attempt to lure younger viewers and people who aren't subscribing to regular cable.

The number of Sling TV customers weren't enough to offset overall declines in pay TV subscribers. The company finished the quarter with a total 13.2 million subscribers including its regular cable customers, down from 13.7 million subscribers last year.

Overall for the quarter, Dish reported earnings of $1.39 billion, or $2.64 a share, up from $355 million, or 73 cents a share a year earlier. The period was helped by a $1.2 billion benefit related to the recently enacted tax overhaul.

Revenue fell 7.8% to $3.48 billion, missing the $3.53 billion forecast by Thomson Reuters.

Shares, inactive premarket, have fallen 29% over the past year.

Write to Imani Moise at imani.moise@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 21, 2018 06:52 ET (11:52 GMT)

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