Dish loses 552K pay TV subscribers in Q1

Dish Network reported that it lost about 552,000 net pay TV subscribers in the first quarter, compared with a decline of 462,000 in the year-ago period and a drop of 268,000 in the fourth quarter of 2022.

The company, led by CEO Erik Carlson and chairman Charlie Ergen, ended the financial quarter with 9.2 million total subscribers. That includes 7.09 million Dish TV customers and 2.1 million Sling TV subscribers, which faces stiff competition from YouTube TV, Hulu+ Live TV and fuboTV.

Dish has been consistently losing pay TV subscriber amid cord-cutting and a shift in consumers to streaming platforms, and more recently saw its subscriber base impacted by an internal cybersecurity attack. The company had an overall pay TV customer base of 9.75 million at the end of the first quarter of 2022.

Dish is looking to transform itself from a satellite TV provider in decline to offering a 5G wireless network as part of a broadband wireless business. The company lost 81,000 wireless phone subscribers during the first quarter, against a year-earlier loss 343,000 customers to close the latest quarter with 7.91 million subscribers.

The latest subscriber losses — where Dish’s retail satellite TV business is shedding subscribers at a faster pace than losses for its retail wireless business — had overall revenues falling to $3.96 billion for the first quarter, compared to $4.33 billion in the year ago period.

And net income attributable to shareholders fell to $233 million, compared to $433 million for the first quarter of 2022.

On a morning analyst call, Dish Network execs said the fallout from a previously-disclosed network outage in February due to a cybersecurity attack fell most heavily on Sling TV, as late fees for monthly invoices were waived after payment systems and call centers went offline.

“That’s where the impact happened,” Carlson reported as efforts to acquire and retain Sling TV customers took a hit, even as Dish Network execs were keen to dispel concerns the ransomware attack would have a long term impact on the pay TV brand and and its subscriber count.

Stock in Dish Network edged up 4 cents, or .5 percent, to $7.16 in early afternoon trading.

Dish Network has seen its share price fall amid investor concerns over the company’s high debt load to build out its broadband wireless business as interest rates rise and pay TV and wireless phone revenues continue under pressure.

“We have a path and it’s not evident to people on this call, but we have a path and we have to execute on that and hope that it doesn’t get any worse in the marketplace,” Charlie Ergen told analysts as he touted his company’s evolving 5G wireless phone network build-out. The Hollywood Reporter