DISH loses 316,000 subs in 2016
February 22, 2017
By Chris Forrester
US pay-TV operator DISH Network activated a net 661,000 new subscribers, either to its DTH operation or to viewers of its Sling TV pay-TV ‘lite’ service, during the fourth quarter of 2016. Gross additions during Q4 were 694,000. Nevertheless, year-on-year subsscriber numbers were down.
The company closed Q4 with 13.671 million pay-TV subscribers, compared to 13.897 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Its 2016 pay-TV subscriber count increased by approximately 166,000 subscribers during the third quarter 2016 as a result of the change in its methodology of counting. “This had no impact on our gross new pay-TV subscriber activations or net pay-TV subscriber losses for the year ended December 31st 2016,” said Dish, in a statement.
Pay-TV ARPU was $88.66 during 2016 versus $86.79 in 2015. Pay-TV average monthly subscriber churn for 2016 was 1.83 per cent compared to 1.71 per cent in 2015.