Dish loses more subscribers in the third quarter, according to a new report, and it is a PR nightmare for the company. On Wednesday, Dish Network Corp. revealed their revenue grew to $3.75 billion from $3.73 billion in 2015. They also claimed that their monthly revenue per subscriber increased, but that is where the positive news ends.
The company lost 116,000 subscribers this quarter – it added 736,000 gross paid subscribers this quarter compared to 751,000 one year ago. In the quarter that ended September 30, 2015, they lost only 23,000. The company explained the massive loss in the following manner:
“It had fewer new paid subscribers because it had stricter customer-acquisition policies and an increased focus on acquiring higher-quality subscribers.”
It also claimed that they faced more and stronger competitors this quarter. The report stated:
“The average acquisition cost per subscriber fell to $640 from $736, while the average monthly revenue per subscriber rose to $89.44 from $86.33.”
Experts predicted that the direct-broadcast satellite service provider had earnings of 68 cents a share on $3.74 billion in revenue. However, the company revealed that its profit was $307.4 million or 64 cents a share, up from $196.5 million, or 42 cents, a year ago. Its revenue climbed to 0.3% at $3.75 billion. Here is more on the matter:
“The company closed the quarter with roughly 13.6 million pay-TV subscribers, compared with 13.9 million at the end of the year-ago quarter. The company includes subscriptions to its Sling TV streaming service in its total pay-TV metrics.”
The report went on to say:
“Pay-TV subscriber churn, the rate at which subscribers leave the service, rose to 2.11% from 1.86% a year earlier because of marketing and discounts from competitors as well as cord-cutting, as some consumers drop television subscriptions in favor of streaming services. Dish also said it was more selective in offering retention credits. Dish lost roughly 20,000 net broadband subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total broadband base to about 593,000.”
It will be interesting to see if Dish will change strategy in the upcoming weeks.
