• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, November 6, 2023

Dish Networks has announced that President and CEO W. Erik Carlson will step down on November 12, but will remain on its board of directors until the company completes its merger with EchoStar.

Hamid Akhavan, who is president and CEO of EchoStar, will now also oversee Dish Networks as well.

Carlson — who joined Dish as an account executive in 1995 and became president and COO in 2015 and CEO in 2017 — “is not resigning due to any disagreement with the board of directors or management of Dish," Dish stated in a regulatory filing this morning that also updates its latest financials.

Dish’s shares fell nearly 9% in early trading following the release, which reported a loss per share of 26 cents, instead of analysts’ expectation of an 11 cent-per-share profit. Q3 saw $3.7 billion in total revenue and a net loss of $139 million, compared to revenue of $4.1 billion and net income of $412 million in Q3 2022.

The company closed the quarter with 8.84 million pay-TV subscribers, compared with nearly 10.02 million as of September 2022 and 10.98 million as of 2021.

Net pay-TV subscribers dropped by 64,000 in the quarter, compared to a net increase of 30,000 in the year-ago quarter and a loss of 294,000 in this year’s second quarter.

Dish TV lost 181,000 subscribers for a total of 8.84 million in Q3, versus losing 184,000 in the year-ago quarter. Sling TV gained 117,000, for a total of 2.12 million, versus gaining 214,000 in the year-ago quarter.