Despite slide in sign-ups, Dish profits in 1st quarter

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Monday, May 12, 2008

Dish Network on Monday posted a larger $258.6 million profit for its first quarter, but net new subscribers slid 88 percent to 35,000.

The country's second-largest satellite TV company blamed slower subscriber growth on the worsening economy, intense competition and satellite launch delays.

"This rate of growth was substantially lower than we have historically experienced," the Douglas County-based company said in a filing with federal regulators.

Dish, which has 13.815 million subscribers overall, added 310,000 subscribers during the same period in 2007.

Company executives didn't comment beyond the regulatory filing. They are scheduled to address analysts in a conference call today.

April Horace, an analyst with Greenwood Village-based Janco Partners, said she believes Wall Street will be disappointed with the subscriber numbers.

But she noted the company's customer churn rate improved slightly.

While Dish reported only 35,000 net new subscribers in its first quarter, rival DirecTV added 275,000. Dish also faces increasing TV competition from cable and telephone companies.

The first-quarter profit was up from $157.1 million during the first quarter of 2007. Price increases boosted average monthly revenue per subscriber from $64.17 a year ago to $67.93.

Separately, Dish Network said Monday it is launching this week an additional 22 high-definition channels, in line with its plan to offer 100 national HD channels by the end of the year.

Eric Sahl, senior vice president of programming, said the new channels bring the company's HD lineup to more than 95 channels.

smithje@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155. Staff writer Sonia Kaur contributed to this report.