By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – @tvanswerman
Dish lost 552,000 pay TV subscribers in this year’s first quarter compared to a decrease of approximately 462,000 subs in the 2022 first quarter, the company reported Monday morning.
The satellite TV business lost 318,000 subscribers in the first quarter while Sling TV, the live streaming service owned by Dish, lost 234,000 customers in the time period. Dish now has 9.2 million pay TV subscribers in total, including 7.1 million satellite customers and 2.1 million Sling TV subs.
Dish’s pay TV subs fell approximately 268,000 in the 2022 fourth quarter, compared to a decrease of approximately 273,000 in the year-ago quarter.
The company closed the fourth quarter with 9.75 million pay-TV subscribers, including 7.42 million Dish subscribers and 2.33 million Sling TV subscribers.
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Dish is scheduled to hold an earnings call later today to discuss the results and related issues. The TV Answer Man will provide an update if anything significant comes from that discussion.
Sling TV is the second live streamer to report losses in the first quarter. Fubo reported on Friday that it lost 160,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year. It had 1,445 million at the end of 2022 and 1.285 million at the end of the 2023 first quarter.
By comparison, it lost only 74,000 net subs in the first quarter of 2022 compared to its sub total at the end of 2021. It had 1.13 million at the end of 2021 and 1.056 million at the end of the 2022 first quarter.
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman
At least the ROOT of the problem ALSO LOST money.
The Programmers need to WAKE UP and CUT their GOUGING.
Costs are determined by programmers…Disney, Warner, Fox, etc. This is why you are seeing all the SVOD services go up and up right now. Pretty simple. You add up all the costs of the SVODS and DTC to match up what you get from pay tv, hard pressed to find any differences if you do it properly (locals, sports, premiums, etc)
Was the DirecTV / Dish Network merger talked or asked about since the AT&T CEO basically said to ask Dish Network a few weeks ago ?