• Bloomberg, Tuesday, August 11, 2009 9:30 AM

Dish Network shares rose 4.8% yesterday after adding subscribers for the first time in five quarters. Analysts had projected that the company would lose as many as 100,000 customers, but instead Dish boosted its promotion spending 65% and added 26,000 net new customers in the second quarter.

It was an uphill battle. Dish lost its marketing deal with AT&T this year to larger rival DirecTV, and is facing mounting competition from cable and phone companies such as Verizon, which offer bundled packages. Dish's churn -- the percentage of customers who left -- fell to 1.7% in the quarter from 1.9% last year.

On the downside, the increased marketing spending hurt near-term earnings. Second-quarter net income fell to $63.4 million from $335.9 million a year earlier. The company had a $196.4 million expense related to a legal battle with TiVo. Sales were little changed at $2.9 billion, in line with the average analyst estimate.

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