Dish Network Corporation reported revenue totaling $3.73 billion for the third quarter, compared to $3.68 billion for the corresponding period in 2014. Subscriber-related revenue increased to $3.7 billion from $3.65 billion in the year-ago period.
Dish includes its Sling TV live, linear streaming over-the-top Internet-based television services in the company’s total Pay-TV metrics.
In the third quarter, Dish activated approximately 751,000 gross new Pay-TV subscribers, compared to approximately 691,000 gross new Pay-TV subscribers in the prior year’s third quarter. Net Pay-TV subscribers declined approximately 23,000 in the third quarter, compared to a loss of approximately 12,000 in the third quarter 2014.
The company closed the third quarter with 13.9 million Pay-TV subscribers, compared to just over 14 million Pay-TV subscribers at the end of Q3 2014.
Pay-TV subscriber churn rate was 1.86 percent versus 1.67 percent for third quarter 2014.
Company officials told analysts they see linear TV as a “mature to declining business.” Their solution is to offer millennials skinny bundles. Sling offers content partners a way to get incremental subscribers, they said.
The company has not decided whether to take part in the upcoming incentive auction. Much depends on what spectrum broadcasters give up and how the FCC re-packs that spectrum, and to what extend it’s impaired, Dish co-founder/Chair/President/CEO Charlie Ergen said during the earnings call.
Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker believes Ergen’s statements about the spectrum auction mean that if Dish doesn’t participate, then Ergen would be able to pursue any strategic option that he desires — with no 1/28 “deadline,” meaning the quiet period for those participating in the forward auction. It also sounds as if he was confirming that the 600MHz being auctioned off is of lower value than his AWS3 and AWS4 wireless spectrum — so the clearing price here should not be extrapolated to his spectrum portfolio, according to Ryvicker.
