• by Wayne Friedman , February 21, 2018

On the back of some weak fourth-quarter revenue results, Dish Network says its internet pay TV service -- Sling TV  -- ended 2017 with 2.2 million subscribers, a gain of 47% over the year before.

It’s the first time the company has disclosed this data.

Overall, the company ended the year totaling 13.24 million pay-TV subscribers -- 11.03 million Dish TV satellite subscribers and 2.2 million Sling TV subscribers.

This was down from 13.7 million a year ago. Total satellite subscribers fell by 121,000. Total Dish company revenue fell 7.8% to $3.48 billion, missing analysts' $3.53 billion estimate.

During the fourth-quarter period, Dish says both its satellite and digital TV pay TV businesses had net increases in pay-TV subscribers -- about 39,000 versus a gain of 28,000 in the year-ago quarter. The results also include 75,000 reactivations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands following damage from Hurricane Maria.

As with many companies, Dish witnessed a big gain due to new federal tax laws with net income at $1.39 billion -- against $355 million from the year-ago quarter -- with $1.2 billion coming from the new tax benefit.

The average subscriber monthly payment -- ARPU, average revenue per user -- declined to $86.43 for 2017  versus $88.66 in 2016. Mid-day trading of Dish stock was up 0.3% to $44.71.