Dish Network Subscriber Growth Skids 89%

[jansan]

Are you just discounting Voom or something? By my count, I had close to 50 HD channels before the latest adds. Not aware of any cable companys that come close.

Anyways, I think Dish is paying the price for the rumored sale back last fall, and how it kind of pulled the legs right out from under everyone at Echostar/Dish. I am hopeful that today's add of another 20 national HD channels, and the close to 100 LiLs in the past six weeks will push them in the right direction.

No. Voom is a national channel. I do not count RSN or PPV channels. National channels only. Certain TWC operators like New York had close to 50 this quarter. There are few cable companies offering 50 HD channels (not national-wide). Almost, everyone had USA & SCI-FI well before us. In certain markets, E* got crushed. E* stock is up nearly 2% in after-hours trading. They like the news.

 

[DodgerKing]

Dish Network Subscriber Growth Skids 89% In First Quarter

By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News,

Citing competition from the telcos and the worsening economy, Dish Network reported Monday that its first-quarter subscriber growth nosedived nearly 89% from a year ago, with only a 35,000 net subscriber gain. The precipitous decline in new subscribers comes less than a week after archrival DirecTV reported last week that it had added 275,000 new subscribers in its most recent quarter, a 17% increase.

CLICK HERE For More...

If it is the economy, then why did Direct increase their growth? Even though their growth decreased, Dish still grew however.

 

[tigerfan33]

Dish's decline in growth is no one other than Dish's fault.

You speak the truth!!!

Everyone saw it coming. The question is why didn't Charlie??

I remember when people were defending Charlie when Dish was getting their ass whopped by Direct. Saying he knew exactly what he was doing.

Maybe he saw how long it was going to take to "reclaim bandwidth" and just took a dive for the 1st quarter.

It is funny too that there are still some people out there that think that hd is still not valuable. For those people I hope you look at next quarters numbers and compare. Ask Direct why they are doing so well. Two letters..HD!!!

 

[TalonDancer]

The amazing thing is that Dish managed to produce ANY net subscriber gain in this quarter. I wonder how much of this 'net subscriber gain' is on the back of the new HD LiLs and/or dishHD (only) package value (even before today's new HD)?

Talon Dancer

 

[mike123abc]

E* stock is up nearly 2% in after-hours trading. They like the news.

There was a scare that E* would show a net decline in subscribers, so 35K positive is "better than expected".

It seems pretty obvious that Dish was counting on new satellites making it to orbit last year and did not have a backup plan. They still do not seem to be doing much about it, even now. They could be relocating the international subscribers off of 61.5 to free up space, making up for the loss of AMC-14. Maybe they think they will get AMC-14 eventually?

As much as people like to blame Charlie Ergan for everything, I think that the blame for this could really indirectly be his fault. It really looks like the last 2 years his involvment has slacked off at Dish, and looks like he was more interested in the Echostar side. It looks like no one at Dish would make decisions without him, they faltered and fell behind. As much as people like to berate Charlie, one can never say that he was not driven to pick innovative technologies. If he had been focused on Dish, they probably never would have fallen behind DIRECTV in HD content. They could have moved the internationals off of 61.5 last year, freed up the space, turned on the spot beam and have 100 markets and 100 HD channels done.

It is not like he could have launched satellites earlier, but he could have driven Dish to better use the capacity they have up in the air already. I could imagine a meeting at the end of March when he saw the sub numbers. They knew exactly the numbers then. He probably threw a fit and told Dish to get the channels up by the shareholder release of the numbers or else. It will be interesting to hear the reports from Team Summit. Eastern Arc will probably have to be delayed some because of launches, but will they improvise?

 

[Greg Bimson]

I think the elephant in the room is that Dish Network has been associated as the "value provider". If that is the case, what is the competition? DirecTV for the past couple of years has tried to market itself to higher end customers. Their churn numbers are divided out to voluntary and involuntary, that is, those that left the service for greener pastures, and those that left the service because they couldn't pay their bills.

DirecTV has been trying to achieve high-end growth subscribers, while Dish Network has been marketing to just about anyone and everyone, while, excuse this, screwing their retailer channel.

And when Dish Network then must compete against value, they then must compete against the triple-play bundles of the telcos and the cablers.

Dish Network is having a harder time signing up subscribers in this economy because they've messed with their retailer channel for the past two years, and then this churn problem has popped up over the past year.

So I guess I'm simply saying that Dish Network is getting beat at their own game, because if they are marketing "value", their track record against the telcos and the cablers are telling.

 

[chrisb83]

Let's not forget that D* has a lot of money for advertising and you see that on almost every channel. Plus adding all those HD channels , MLB EI, Sunday ticket....D* does not suck by any means. I was on the fence on leaving but I'm glad that I stuck it out. And I think dish needs a better spokes person for there product than "Frank TV". But all in all today was a good day. Thank God for CSNBA HD on Wed.

 

[Stargazer]

I see a lot of new customers for the past year or two choosing DirecTv instead of Dish Network as a new satellite installation in their home. I think this is due to different factors. One is the fact that Directv is offering better promotions and some Dish Network customers switching to Directv to get some free movie channels for a while in addition to discounts. Another is that I think some of the Dish Network retailers no longer sell Dish but sells DirecTv instead (perhaps not paying their retailers, for example). You have to keep your retailers happy and pay them if you want them to continue selling their product. There used to be a bunch of retailers in my area and then within a year's time it seemed like they all quit selling Dish Network and do not even advertise it in front of their business any longer. This seems to be about the same time that they quit paying me and when I quit as well. Third, DirecTv offering HD channels. Higher end customers are being lost to DirecTv. Four, customer service. Who can understand the foreigners on the phone? It seems harder to get things resolved now than what it used to be.

 

[chrisb83]

I see a lot of new customers for the past year or two choosing DirecTv instead of Dish Network as a new satellite installation in their home. I think this is due to different factors. One is the fact that Directv is offering better promotions and some Dish Network customers switching to Directv to get some free movie channels for a while in addition to discounts. Another is that I think some of the Dish Network retailers no longer sell Dish but sells DirecTv instead (perhaps not paying their retailers, for example). You have to keep your retailers happy and pay them if you want them to continue selling their product. There used to be a bunch of retailers in my area and then within a year's time it seemed like they all quit selling Dish Network and do not even advertise it in front of their business any longer. This seems to be about the same time that they quit paying me and when I quit as well. Third, DirecTv offering HD channels. Higher end customers are being lost to DirecTv. Four, customer service. Who can understand the foreigners on the phone? It seems harder to get things resolved now than what it used to be.

Well said. And to add on to that, E* technology is so far ahead of D*, yet E* poor PR/ advertising/ Charlie just being stupid also hurts them to. E* is probably spending to much money on lawyers.

 

[mike123abc]

Dish made a lot of cash though Free Preview - WSJ.com :

Dish Network Corp. (DISH) said Monday its first-quarter net income rose 65% even though new subscriber growth of its satellite television service plunged on the languishing economy and stiffer competition.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company also cited satellite launch delays and problems within its operations as factors that dampened growth.

For the quarter that ended March 31, EchoStar reported net income of $259 million, or 58 cents a share, compared with net income of $157 million, or 35 cents a share, in the first quarter of 2007. Revenue totaled $2.84 billion, up 7.6% from $2.64 billion a year ago.

 

[mikethedishguy]

As an installer for many years the figurers from E* come as no suprise. From the tech view the start of the losses began with the duel reciever and dish proand plus systems. They are much more difficult to install require better conections and are more prone to failures even though they are correctly installed. The early hardware and software was not very good and caused many problems. I can't count the times that I have gone to a service call and the reciever was moved or customer got a new tv and the reciever was not corectly installed or changed the channel from tv2 to something other than it was set to. Customer service has become a hit or miss with 20% of all work orders being wrong forcing the tech to eather reschedual or take his time to make the changes so that the order was correct.

E* appeared to resolve these problems by leaning on the tech by making them responsible for not only the install that they did but all problems with the system, including the customer that cant figure out how to use the remote. At the same time they incressed the amount of labor that the tech need to do to complete a work order with out any additional compensation.

With the loss of new customers most techs have lost much of there income and the good ones have gone to greener pastures thus snowballing the situation.

 

[EricBskiVT]

Well said. And to add on to that, E* technology is so far ahead of D*, yet E* poor PR/ advertising/ Charlie just being stupid also hurts them to. E* is probably spending to much money on lawyers.

Exactly! I am overwhelmed with D* ads and rarely see any for E*. I went with E* years ago because they were the better value, had better equipment and more bandwidth. But I did my homework and most do not.

 

[mdwatt]

Advertising and marketing have a lot to do with it. D* does a MUCH better job with this than E*. DISH's commercials STINK! They seem like they only want to reach a niche' market. And if they keep things up, that's exactly what they'll get. Don't get me wrong, I love DISH. The main thing I like about them is their receivers. I think their laid out better and more user friendly than D*s boxes. They do tend to push the technology envelope a little further as well. D* has no dual tuner receiver, no recording to an external drive, no UHF capable remotes.... But the flip side of the same coin is that these same technologies are the ones that, as another poster said, cause a lot of customer confusion and problems. So why are people switching? I'd say the biggest reason is in the advertising. D* has it figured out. E* is lagging not only in HD content, especially with the removal of VOOM.

 

[kvnfl]

I think that D* has alot to do with this. There is no way that market conditions and telco comptition caused this. It was nothing but a smoke screen. The real reason is Directv just plain whoooped our asses when it came to adding new hd because dish wasnt serious and should have been serious 6 months ago. That is why we saw all of these channels launch today. Its damage repair. If it was Teleco compitition and market conditions then we would be seeing it accross the board. But instead we see that directv subs increase and dish subs decrease. Notice the trend the last two quarters.

This leads me to say: CHARLIE YOUR DOING SOMETHING WRONG!

Hopefully today was a sign that they have fixed things. Allthough actions speak louder than words.

Not a fix. The idiots dropped half the VOOM channels on the same day. VOOM was one of the few things Charlie was doing right.

 

[BrianMis]

Advertising and marketing have a lot to do with it. D* does a MUCH better job with this than E*. DISH's commercials STINK! They seem like they only want to reach a niche' market. And if they keep things up, that's exactly what they'll get. Don't get me wrong, I love DISH. The main thing I like about them is their receivers. I think their laid out better and more user friendly than D*s boxes. They do tend to push the technology envelope a little further as well. D* has no dual tuner receiver, no recording to an external drive, no UHF capable remotes.... But the flip side of the same coin is that these same technologies are the ones that, as another poster said, cause a lot of customer confusion and problems. So why are people switching? I'd say the biggest reason is in the advertising. D* has it figured out. E* is lagging not only in HD content, especially with the removal of VOOM.

I switched from E* to D* and I couldn't be happier. D* has dual tuner receivers, I have 2 HR21's (and only pay one DVR Fee) both have dual tuners. While their not dual room, I can still record 2 showes at once. I have external hard drives plugged into each of them (didn't have to pay any extra fees). You can also get a RF remote.

I switched because I wanted more HD. I am glad that E* added more HD for you folks, but I'm not looking back. I highly doubt any that switched are.

 

[Ronnie-]

They do tend to push the technology envelope a little further as well. D* has no dual tuner receiver, no recording to an external drive, no UHF capable remotes.... .

While I agree that E* has some great boxes, D* offers everthing in this list that you say they dont.

 

[Stargazer]

I like Dish Network's hardware better than DirecTv's hardware from what I have seen.

 

[tomcrown1]

Dish grew because they put the emphasis on customer service. Now their customer service stinks and going overseas was a stupid move. Charlie the tuna knew better. He should now do what he says he will do and put all of his energy into improving customer service.

 

[NightRyder]

It's from a whole host of factors - Poor to non-existant communication, bad CS, Nazi audit squads, poor advertising, failure to keep up with D* on HD, using their customers as bargaining chips, making "Club Dish" a complete hassle and failing to reimburse properly, stupid rules on the number of leased receivers etc..etc..etc

NightRyder

 

[jandar187]

I left Dish because of all of the empty promises, including the 2 year old promise of having lilHD for the JAX DMA.

My cancellation fee was aived due to this, and I had just renewed to get the 722 2 months before hand.

I know I am not the only one, this decision they had to price monger and then the sat issue really backfired on them. DirecTV took them to the woodshed for months, this caused the massive drain in subscribers. It wasn't the fact of who had more channels, it was simple marketing promises that people stopped believing...

While I could have continued using my OTA, it is much easier to feed 3 HDTVs with lilHD over the sat versus running new cable in my attic.