Dish Network Rises After Topping TV-Subscriber Estimates

(Bloomberg) -- Dish Network Corp., the satellite-TV provider, rose as much as 3.9% after reporting fewer second-quarter subscriber losses than analysts expected -- a slight respite from relentless cord cutting by pay-TV customers.

• Total TV subscribers shrank by 96,000 in the period, Dish said Friday. That compared with the projected loss of 236,750 customers, the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The company also reported earnings and sales that beat Wall Street forecasts.
• See more details.

Key Insights

• The Covid-19 pandemic caused bars and hotels to close. Dish said it lost about 250,000 of these business accounts at the beginning of the second quarter and that 5,000 have since returned as paying customers. These customers weren’t counted as new subscribers.
• While pay TV delivers the bulk of Dish’s sales and profit, the company’s emerging mobile-phone business is of keen interest to investors -- in part because of the trove of airwaves accumulated under co-founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen. On July 1, the company completed its $1.4 billion acquisition of Boost Mobile, officially entering the retail wireless market and picking up more than 9 million customers.
• A year ago, Dish reached agreements that give the company access to the T-Mobile US Inc. network for seven years and will work with the stand-alone 5G network now underway.
• Dish closed the quarter with 11.27 million pay-TV subscribers. That’s down from 11.32 million at the end of the first quarter. The company now has 9.02 million Dish TV subscribers and 2.25 million Sling TV subscribers.

Market Reaction

• Dish shares were up $1.17, or 3.4%, to $35.47 at 9:39 a.m. in New York. They had declined 3.3% this year through Thursday.

Get More

• See a Bloomberg Intelligence report.
• Read the company statement.

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