Dish Network Revenues Rise as Subscribers Fade Away

For the full year Dish, reported diluted EPS of $2.04 on revenues of $14.6 billion, compared with EPS of $1.76 and revenues of $13.9 billion in 2013. Consensus estimates called for EPS of $1.59 on revenues of $14.66 billion.

In a surprise move, the company announced that CEO Joseph Clayton will retire on March 31 after nearly four years at the helm. Chairman and co-founder Charlie Ergen will assume Clayton’s roles as president and CEO.

In 2014, Dish lost a net 79,000 pay-TV subscribers, compared with a loss of just 1,000 in 2013. The company reported 13.98 million pay-TV subscribers at the end of 2014, compared with 14.06 million in 2013. According to Dish, the loss was primarily the result of “lower gross new Pay-TV subscriber activations and programming interruptions” such as the one that caused Fox News stations to be absent from Dish programming for about a month.

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Dish also said it activated approximately 2.60 million net new pay-TV subscribers, compared with approximately 2.67 million in 2013. Average monthly subscriber churn increased slightly from 1.58% to 1.59% year-over-year.

Dish Network also added approximately 141,000 net new broadband subscribers in 2014, bringing the company’s total to around 577,000, compared with 436,000 at the end of 2013. In 2013 Dish added 253,000 net broadband subscribers. The company blamed the drop on “lower gross new Broadband subscriber activations and a higher number of customer disconnects.”

Average revenue per user for the company’s pay-TV service totaled $83.77 a month in 2014, up from $80.37 in 2013, due largely to subscription fee increases. The annual rise in revenues was attributed primarily these higher fees and added broadband revenues.

Dish did not offer guidance, but the consensus estimates call for first quarter EPS of $0.43 on revenues of $3.75 billion. The full-year estimates call for EPS of $1.75 and revenues of $15.27 billion.

Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless LicenseCo, two companies in which Dish owns indirect interests, spent about $13 billion in the recent AWS-3 spectrum license auction concluded on January 29.

Dish Network’s shares closed at $78.31 on Friday night, in a 52-week range of $55.45 to $78.54. The shares traded up about 0.1% in Monday’s premarket session at $78.40. The consensus target price for the shares was around $76.00 before the report.

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