Dish Posts Net Income Increase Of 30%, But No Subscriber Gains

ArrowUp-over-MoneyDish Network did not gain many new subscribers in the third quarter, but it still posted big net income gains for the period.

The satellite dish programming service company had a 30% gain in profit to $319.1 million on revenues that climbed 12% to $3.6 billion -- mostly because of its acquisition of the Blockbuster video retail store chain back in April.

Dish had a net loss of 111,000 subscribers in the quarter -- but this was the result of not signing up new subscribers -- not necessarily losing existing customers. Still, the company says the numbers are high.

The company's results can be partly attributed to the marketing efforts of its main competitors during the period, according to analysts, DirecTV started up its popular NFL Sunday Ticket package in the period, adding what it said was a record 327,000 subscribers in the third quarter.

Joe Clayton, president/chief executive officer of Dish Network, said in a release: "Our net subscriber loss improved over the second quarter of this year but continued to be affected by increased competitive pressures, including aggressive competitive promotional offers, discounting and a weak housing market."

He added: "Going forward, we plan to build on the momentum of our introduction of the Blockbuster-branded programming service which allows Dish customers to stream movies and TV shows as well as receive DVDs by mail."

Dish, now the third-largest subscription TV company with 13.9 million subscribers, ended the period with the same number it had two years ago. The second-biggest subscription TV service, DirecTV, is at 19.8 million. Comcast Corp. remains the number one pay-TV provider.

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