Dish Network on Thursday reported lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings and said it lost 196,000 pay TV subscribers in the period.
The satellite TV company, led by Charlie Ergen, had lost 143,000 net pay TV subscribers in the first quarter and 281,000 in the second quarter last year, which was its largest quarterly drop ever. Macquarie Capital analyst Amy Yong had projected a subscriber loss of 229,000 in the latest period.
The company in its earnings report once again included subscribers for its Sling TV streaming service, but didn’t detail how many of those it added in the quarter or how many it had in total at the end of March. Dish ended June with 13.332 million pay TV subscribers.
Second-quarter earnings of $40 million, or 9 cents per share, compared with $424 million, or 91 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Net income for the second quarter was negatively impacted by litigation expenses, net of related taxes, of $280 million. Quarterly revenue fell to $3.64 billion from $3.86 billion. The quarterly financials came in below Wall Street estimates.
