ENGLEWOOD, Colo., —EchoStar, which hopes to sell its pay TV operations to DirecTV, continued to hemorrhage subscribers in its third-quarter earnings report, with its Dish TV satellite-TV service losing about 188,000 customers.
But Sling TV, its virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD), gained 145,000 subscribers. That put EchoStar’s total pay TV losses at 43,000 subs in Q3, a slight improvement over the 65,000 total video losses it sustained in the year-ago period. Sling TV subscriber growth also represented an improvement over Q3 of 2023, when it gained 117,000 subs.
The subscriber counts are important because they could impact the proposed sales of Dish's pay TV assets to DirecTV and because EchoStar needs the cash from its pay TV operations to help fund its buildout of 5G services.
The company closed the third quarter with 8.03 million pay-TV subscribers, including 5.89 million Dish TV customers and 2.14 million Sling TV households. This decrease in net pay-TV subscriber losses resulted from higher net Sling TV subscriber additions in the third quarter compared to the year-ago quarter and a lower Dish TV churn rate, offset by lower gross new Dish TV subscriber activations, EchoStar said.
Overall, EchoStar reported total revenue of $11.86 billion for the nine months ended Sept. 30, down from $12.85 billion in the year-ago period. Net loss attributable to EchoStar in the first three quarters of 2024 was $454.78 million, a significant decline from a year ago, when it had net income of $327.83 million. Diluted loss per share was $1.67, compared to earnings per share of $1.06 in the year-ago period.
Consolidated operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) totaled $1.23 billion for the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared to $1.69 billion in the year-ago period. That decline is notable because EchoStar hopes to use its cash to fund its pivot to 5G.
Retail wireless subscribers, excluding Affordable Connectivity Program subscribers, increased by about 62,000 in the third quarter. The company closed the third quarter with 6.98 million retail wireless subscribers.
However, retail wireless subscribers decreased by about 297,000 in the third quarter, compared to a decrease of 225,000 a year ago. EchoStar’s wireless losses were up due to net losses of ACP and other government-subsidized subscribers, mainly due to the ACP program concluding on June 1.
The company closed Q3 with 912,000 broadband satellite subscribers, down about 43,000 for the quarter, compared to 59,000 in the year-ago quarter. The decrease in net broadband satellite subscriber losses was primarily due to the new EchoStar XXIV (Jupiter 3) satellite service launch and increased subscriber demand for new satellite service plans.
The third quarter was negatively impacted by the ACP program funding concluding on June 1, EchoStar said.
