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Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:44 am
by tvroadmin
Dish Sheds 334,000 TV Subscribers in Q4, Taking a Hit From HBO and Univision Blackouts
By TODD SPANGLER

Dish Network lost a record 381,000 satellite TV subs in the fourth quarter of 2018, as the carriage standoffs with AT&T’s HBO and Univision accelerated the pain the company has already been feeling from cord-cutting trends.

Dish eked out a net gain of just 47,000 subs for Sling TV, its cheaper over-the-top subscription offering, in the period. The Q4 2018 overall losses compares with Dish’s net addition of 39,000 in the year-ago quarter.

The major factors hurting Dish’s subscriber numbers: Univision programming remains dark on Dish and Sling TV, after it was pulled from on June 30, 2018, as do HBO and Cinemax, which have been unavailable on Dish satellite and Sling TV services since Oct. 31.

Dish’s stock fell more than 7% in pre-market trading Wednesday on the Q4 subscriber loss.

“Univision’s removal of certain of its channels from our programming lineup will continue to negatively impact our Dish TV churn rate, net Dish TV subscriber losses, gross new Dish TV subscriber activations and net Sling TV subscriber additions in the short-term,” Dish said in an 8-K filing Wednesday. “However, over the long term, we anticipate that we will be able to provide more compelling offers to our subscribers, particularly containing Latino programming because of, among other things, our ability to provide more flexible and lower cost programming and because certain Univision programming is also available through alternative methods including over the air antennas and directly from Univision over the Internet.”

With regard to the loss of the HBO channels, Dish said that also boosted churn rates, subscriber losses and lower gross new Dish TV subscriber activations during the third and fourth quarter 2018 and continuing into the first quarter 2019.

“[W]e and AT&T have been unable to negotiate the terms and conditions of a new programming carriage contract” for the HBO networks, Dish said in the 8-K. ” Furthermore, AT&T offers its programming, including its HBO and Cinemax channels, directly to consumers over the Internet and provides HBO for free to subscribers of its streaming service AT&T’s ‘Watch TV.’”

Last month, Dish filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Univision, alleging the broadcaster’s products including subscription-streaming service Univision Now, the Univision app, and Univision Deportes services violate four Dish-owned patents covering adaptive bit-rate streaming.

All told, Dish lost a net 1.125 million satellite TV customers in 2018, to stand at 9.905 million at the end of last year. It had 2.417 million Sling TV subscribers, a net gain of 205,000 for the year.

Dish topped Wall Street expectations on revenue but missed on the bottom line. The company posted revenue of $3.31 billion for Q4, compared with $3.48 billion in the year-earlier period, and diluted earnings per share of 64 cents. Analyst consensus estimates for Q4 were revenue of $3.28 billion and earnings of 67 cents per share.

For full-year 2018, Dish’s pay-TV average revenue per subscriber was $85.46, down from $86.43 in 2017, reflecting the shift to cheaper Sling TV packages. Dish’s satellite TV average monthly subscriber churn for 2018 was 1.78%, unchanged from 2017.

Source

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:57 am
by tvroadmin
It is worth noting that the combined losses for both DirecTV/Dish on an annualized basis are 4 million subs or about 15% of their total customer base.

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2019 8:51 am
by 4dtvfrank
You gotta be dumb as a rock to get your television entertainment from the failing d*cknet with their cell phone contracts, hidden charges, bill creep and crappy picture. I kicked them to the curb a looooooooong time ago and went with a c band provider that is actually experiencing growth!!!!!

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 7:29 am
by norman881
What provider are you using?

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 7:38 am
by gtalover1
What provider are you using 4dtvfrank?

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:25 pm
by rusty
gtalover1 wrote:
Sun Feb 17, 2019 7:38 am
What provider are you using 4dtvfrank?
I'll guess Rainier. :biggrin

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 3:19 pm
by gtalover1
:deadhorse2: I'm guessing Rainier also. :ballchain
rusty wrote:
Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:25 pm
gtalover1 wrote:
Sun Feb 17, 2019 7:38 am
What provider are you using 4dtvfrank?
I'll guess Rainier. :biggrin

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:04 pm
by Arion
4dtv=Glenn?? Experiencing growth? The new Orby service gives a lot more channels that people want to actually watch without a c-band setup and a $700 receiver which is already obsolete. People can get a service superior to Rainier with a $100 receiver or $200 DVR with a KU dish.

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:11 pm
by tvroadmin
Arion wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:04 pm
4dtv=Glenn??
Sure does smell like him.
Arion wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:04 pm
Experiencing growth?
There are no verifiable subscribers of this service. Sure, lots of people like '4dtvfrank' going around the forums posting they subscribe, but I think we can charge all those posts to a single master account, namely, Glenn's account. :lolsign:
Arion wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 5:04 pm
The new Orby service gives a lot more channels that people want to actually watch without a c-band setup and a $700 receiver which is already obsolete. People can get a service superior to Rainier with a $100 receiver or $200 DVR with a KU dish.
Will Orby even make it in this environment? Remains to be seen... They must be bleeding cash right about now at the rate of $200k per month to Eutelsat, but whoever is behind this service must also have deep pockets to get tens of thousands of receivers into hundreds of Best Buy stores and negotiate contracts with the big programmers, something Rainier couldn't do. But Rainier does have one trump card up their sleeve: they piggy back off the c-band satellite orbital fleet already in place to serve cable companies so they have zero content delivery expenses. It would be funny as hell if market pressures at some point forced the big guys to shutter their direct-to-home satellite services while Rainier emerges unscathed with EOL receivers, no installers, limited programming, lack of epg and all. :rotflmao:

Re: Dish Sheds 381,000 Satellite TV Subs in Q4

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:30 pm
by Arion
Yeah, Orby isn't FTA but I wish them luck anyway. Not everyone has the room or the drive to install a C-Band and KU-Band FTA dishes and receivers and between the cable companies and two main satellite services charging people through the nose they are cord cutting mainly because they can't afford it. Orby might serve a niche customer but I think they are on to something. A lot of people that can't stomach $100 a month for pay tv can handle $40 or $50 for some decent channels and no additional receiver rental fees and all the crap the main players pile on top of it. They might not be ready for nationwide rollout yet as Best Buy has just begun to stock the receivers and not many of those installers are familiar with everything yet from what I've read on other forums. If they want to get a lot of subscribers then they'll have to advertise and I haven't see any as of yet. I'm half tempted to get one myself but I can't even watch everything I get right now let alone adding another receiver.