At the end of the first quarter, Dish reported 14.1 million pay TV subscribers and said it added approximately 40,000 net new pay TV subscribers, an improvement of 10% year-over-year due to a lower churn rate. Gross subscriber additions totaled about 639,000, down about 2.3% from a year ago.
Dish Network also added a net 53,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter, down from additions of approximately 66,000 in the year-ago quarter. Gross additions were about flat at 83,000 new subscribers. The good news for Dish here is that broadband revenue doubled to $83 million.
Average revenue per user for the company’s pay TV service totaled $82.36 a month in the first quarter, up from $78.44 a year ago, due largely to subscription fee increases.
Compared with rival DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV), Dish Network had a so-so quarter. DirecTV claims more than 20 million U.S. subscribers and its average revenue per user rose to just over $100 per month. However Dish’s net addition of 40,000 far outstripped DirecTV’s 12,000, and Dish’s churn rate was slightly lower, 1.42% to 1.45% for DirecTV.
Dish did not offer guidance, but the consensus estimates call for second-quarter EPS of $0.52 on revenues of $3.68 billion. The full-year estimates call for EPS of $1.80 and revenues of $14.68 billion.
The company has tried desperately to expand its offerings outside of pay TV, but so far it has been unable to make the big deal it needs. Its bid for Sprint failed and its stab at gaining wireless spectrum from bankrupt LightSquared Inc. is floundering. The report of a tie-up between DirecTV and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) just adds to the company’s uneasiness.
Dish Network’s shares closed at $62.66 on Wednesday night, in a 52-week range of $37.30 to $64.52. The consensus target price for the shares was around $59.00 before this report.
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