• by Wayne Friedman , June 3, 2020

With growing subscriber losses, digital pay TV provider Sling TV is changing its top senior executive.

Warren Schlichting, president of Sling TV, is being replaced by Michael Schwimmer, who has been leading Dish Network’s international business development and strategy since June 2019.

Schwimmer will have the title of group president of Sling TV, reporting to Erik Carlson, chief executive officer of Dish Network.

Sling TV -- the first major digital pay TV provider, which launched in February 2015 -- has increasingly seen subscriber declines, like many other digital pay TV services.

In the first quarter of this year Sling TV witnessed accelerated net losses, amounting to 281,000. In the previous quarter, Sling posted its first decline -- a net loss of 94,000 accounts.

As of March 31, Sling subscribers were down 4.7% year-over-year to 2.3 million.

Last month, during its first-quarter earnings release, the company said: “The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economic environment generally, and on us specifically, have adversely impacted our business.”

At that time Dish also pointed to increased competition from virtual pay TV providers, subscription on-demand services, and delays/cancellations of TV sporting events.

Sling TV’s sister pay TV service, Dish Network, had net subscriber losses of 132,000 versus 266,000, now totaling 9.01 million subscribers.