Dish Network: 52 week low
May 9, 2022
By Chris Forrester
Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network pay-TV platform suffered a major stock-market hit on May 6th and damaged by news of a thumping 462,000 net subscriber loss during its Q1 trading. Dish’s share price fell 19.4 per cent by the close of trading, and a 52-week ‘low’ and with shares actually trading at $19.57 (compared with $47.05 a year ago).
Dish blamed “poor execution” during the quarter, and reported that it now has a total of 10.2 million subscribers including its Sling TV streaming system which has also lost viewers; down from 2.5 million a year ago to 2.25 million at the end of March.
“We had higher than expected customer attrition following the football season, but the bottom line is we simply didn’t execute to the level we expected,” Dish Network’s CEO Erik Carlson said on the earnings call.
In its research note to clients, MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote that Sling TV had ended the quarter with 2.25 million customers, its lowest point since 2017. “There was a time when Sling TV was to become the lifeboat for satellite TV,” Moffett added. “That lifeboat is taking on water.”
In terms of cash Dish Network reported net income of $433 million (€411.7m), down from $630 million in the year-earlier quarter.
“We had a tough quarter, but we’re optimistic that we can leverage the platform and our messaging and high-value products and great experience to reach customers whose overall video bills are too high, but who still want the excitement of live TV,” Carlson added.