EchoStar’s mixed results

Chris Forrester

EchoStar and its spin-off pay-TV company Dish Network declared their half-yearly results Aug 10, and they were mixed. Profits were down badly, but subscription numbers were up.

First, EchoStar Corp, which operates the satellites. It more than doubled its profits in Q2 earning $101.8m ($47.8m the same period last year). EchoStar said its revenues from Dish Network rose to $99.4m (from $93m in the same period last year).

The bad news is that the company’s revenues tumbled 21% to $383.1m from $483.3m. The company blamed lower set-top box sales.

On the pay-TV side of the business the (separately quoted) Dish Network gained 26,000 net new subscribers, the first rise in 5 quarters, helped by the June 2009 analogue switch-off of network broadcasting in the USA. Dish ended the mid-year with 13.6m subs, down 1.3% on a year ago. Dish Network’s churn was 1.73%/month, down from 1.87% this time last year. Dish says that the company’s piracy problems are being cured.

Inevitably there were comparisons with last week’s DirecTV numbers, which added 224,000 subs, taking its total to 18.3m.