Dish Network has reported a 6% drop in first-quarter 2017 earnings to $376M versus last year’s comparable period when net income was $400M. The profit dip came as Charlie Ergen’s Dish lost more pay-TV subscribers than expected. In the period, 143K subs left Dish compared to 23K in the same frame of 2016. Analysts had estimated a loss of 72K subscribers, according to FactSet as cited by Reuters. Revenues were $3.68B, down 3.9% from last year’s $3.83M.
The Q1 earnings report follows last week’s news that Dish had reached a multi-year carriage deal with Hearst Television after an impasse left customers in 26 markets unable to watch the broadcaster’s stations since March 3.
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In the first quarter, the No. 2 U.S. satellite provider activated approximately 547K gross new Pay-TV subscribers, compared to approximately 657K in Q1 2016. The company closed the first quarter with 13.528M pay-TV subs. Churn rate was 1.69% versus 1.63% in Q1 2016. Dish includes all of its Sling TV subscribers in the company’s total pay-TV metrics. Dish also lost about 25K net broadband subscribers in the first quarter. The total remaining is now about 555K.
Shares in Dish closed Friday at $64.44. During the 12 months leading up to that close, share have risen 26.85%.
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