DISH Network Corporation 2nd Q 2009 Financial Results (Subscribers up, profits down)

[Stewart Vernon]

http://dish.client.shareholder.com/common/alerts/DISH/default/logo.gif

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., July 27, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- DISH Network Corporation (Nasdaq: DISH) will host its second quarter 2009 financial results conference call on Monday, Aug. 10, 2009, at noon ET. The dial-in number is (800) 616-6729.
DISH Network's press release about its financial results will be distributed prior to the conference call. The press release will be available on the DISH Network Web site, www.dishnetwork.com/aboutus (http://www.dishnetwork.com/aboutus).

About DISH Network Corporation
DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH), the nation's HD leader, provides approximately 13.584 million satellite TV customers as of March 31, 2009 with the highest quality programming and technology at the best value, including the lowest all-digital price nationwide. Customers have access to hundreds of video and audio channels, the most HD channels, the most international channels, state-of-the-art interactive TV applications, and award-winning HD and DVR technology including 1080p Video on Demand and the ViP(R) 722 HD DVR, a CNET and PC Magazine "Editors' Choice." DISH Network is included in the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and is a Fortune 250 company. Visit http://www.dishnetwork.com/www.dishnetwork.com (http://www.dishnetwork.com/).

SOURCE DISH Network Corporation
http://www.dishnetwork.com

Copyright (C) 2009 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

[Shades228]

Think they will post positive sub growth yet?

[lparsons21]

If I read it right, they lost 94,000 net subscribers in the quarter which is just under the net loss for the entire previous year. That's not good.

But it appears that the net revenue from subscribers is up some. I suspect some from the price increases and some from reducing some costs.

[Shades228]

They already released the data? I thought that was last quarters numbers. In general a loss of subscribers and lack of new sub growth will increase short term cash like it did last quarter. However another quarter loss will start so show a reduction in cash flow soon.

[BNUMM]

"There was some speculation Thursday that the numbers would indicate that about 95,000 AT&T-affiliated DISH Network subscribers canceled their subscriptions in the period, but AT&T did not release any specific results to that effect."

This may be where you saw the 95,000 number. It is a partial quote from SkyReport dated 7/26/2009.

[quannj]

well as speaking from the front line the tri-state area is booming with new connects..i think we will show a gain..if the rest of the us is like it is here then i est @ least 50-100k in new subs

[Stewart Vernon]

I think there was to be some expected churn from folks who decided to keep their AT&T bundle by switching from Dish to DirecTV... but to my way of thinking those customers were never really Dish customers anyway.

Yes, it's a loss... and it hurts... but they were going to stick with whomever AT&T chose so they were in the most-likely-to-jump classification of customers already I suspect.

[phrelin]

Anybody know when and if 20th Century Charlie will join the 21st Century and web cast the call like DirecTV does? I know everyone thinks he's a techie, but I'm beginning to think his tech brain stopped in 1996.

[Richard King]

Anybody know when and if 20th Century Charlie will join the 21st Century and web cast the call like DirecTV does? I know everyone thinks he's a techie, but I'm beginning to think his tech brain stopped in 1996.

He used to webcast the audio portion, but that stopped a couple of years ago. I always tried to listen in.

[ans2004]

well, today is the day......

[BNUMM]

Dish had a net gain of 26,000.

[jclewter79]

Thats alot better, how did churn look?

[Shades228]

Any other information available or is there a posted recap?

[BNUMM]

I got it from Dish's website under news releases. Only other info was about profits.

[Shades228]

Dish posted a revenue loss of 81% income was 63.4 mil, 14 cents a share down from 335.9 mil, 73 cents a share. Chrun was 1.73% Expenses up 16% citing fees to support the network and to cover legal costs with the attorney general in 46 states.

[Stewart Vernon]

http://dish.client.shareholder.com/common/alerts/DISH/default/logo.gif

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Aug 10, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- DISH Network Corporation (Nasdaq: DISH) today reported total revenue of $2.904 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, a 0.4 percent decrease compared with $2.915 billion for the corresponding period in 2008.

Net income totaled $63 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, compared with $336 million during the corresponding period in 2008. Basic earnings per share were $0.14 for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, compared with basic earnings per share of $0.75 during the corresponding period in 2008.

DISH Network added approximately 26,000 net subscribers during the quarter ended June 30, 2009, ending the quarter with approximately 13.610 million subscribers.

Detailed financial data and other information are available in DISH Network's Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended June 30, 2009, filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

About DISH Network Corporation
DISH Network Corporation (Nasdaq: DISH), the nation's HD leader, provides approximately 13.610 million satellite TV customers as of June 30, 2009 with the highest quality programming and technology at the best value, including the lowest all-digital price nationwide. Customers have access to hundreds of video and audio channels, the most HD channels, the most international channels, state-of-the-art interactive TV applications, and award-winning HD and DVR technology including 1080p Video on Demand and the ViP((R)) 722 HD DVR, a CNET and PC Magazine "Editors' Choice." DISH Network is included in the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and is a Fortune 250 company. Visit www.dishnetwork.com (http://www.dishnetwork.com/).
DISH Network will host its Second Quarter 2009 earnings conference call today at noon ET. The dial-in number is (800) 616-6729.

SOURCE DISH Network Corporation
http://www.dishnetwork.com
Copyright (C) 2009 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

[Stewart Vernon]

I'll be curious to see how this gets spun.

People have been spinning the subscribers down/profits up as bad for Dish... So surely they will be forced to spin subscribers up/profits down as good?

[Paul Secic]

Anybody know when and if 20th Century Charlie will join the 21st Century and web cast the call like DirecTV does? I know everyone thinks he's a techie, but I'm beginning to think his tech brain stopped in 1996.

What do you expect from Charlie:lol::lol::lol:

[Shades228]

I think the online spin can be "this was projected based on our earlier sub loss and legal fees that we could not avoid".

The question remains which will Charlie focus on reducing? Operating costs or legal fees.

[rocatman]

The DISH stock is up 5.1% and the SATS stock is up 7.84% on the day when all the U.S. major indices are down about 0.5% so the stock market has reacted positively to the financial numbers.

[Kheldar]

THE FULL REPORT for Q2 (http://dish.client.shareholder.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=950123-09-32467)

[Hound]

E* had a net sub gain of 26,000 for its first net gain in five
Quarters. Good to see E* back in the black. The loss of
Voom and HD RSNs is in the past. The modest gain may
Reflect no MLB Network. Anyway, the following chart
Shows an industry trend that cable continues to lose
Market share because its mainstream packages are just
Too expensive especially in a recession. Comcast which
Hemmorhaged video subs in the quarter is only increasing
Revenue and net income from prior year results by
Increasing rates and for many video subs twice a year.
I was at the phillies game yesterday and every other
Inning the scoreboard would read comcast more HD than
Anyone (E* says that too). I was kind of wishing that
A monitor would come on and say stay on topic (baseball).
Who cares about more HD than anyone. Here is this
List:
1. Verizon 300
2. Att 248
3. D* 224
4. E* 26
5. Cablevision. (9)
6. TWC (57)
7. Charter. (73)
8. Comcast (214)
Quarters list.
1. Verizon 300

[phrelin]

Hmmmm. a 26,000 net subscriber increase. Isn't that marvelous. I'm not going to be able to look at the quarterly details tonight, but here's what I had to say about the news that DirecTV U.S. Net Additions Increased 74% to 224,000. Congratulations to DirecTV. Based on all the deeper analysis of buying habits in The Great Recession the trend was that people were spending more on home entertainment. It appears that we can see where many of them went for HD for those new TV's and I suspect the numbers will not be similar for my signal provider.I think I was right as the numbers aren't similar for my provider. And there's no way to spin that fact.;)

[phrelin]

Couldn't we combine this with DISH Network Corporation Announces Conference Call for 2nd Q 2009 Financial Results in a thread with a slightly revised title?

[Jim5506]

The loss of Voom and HD RSNs is in the past. The modest gain may reflect no MLB Network.

I do not understand these two sentences, not the loss of Voom phrase, but what about the HD RSN's? What have they to do with Dish Networks subscriber base now that they did not earlier (or vice versa)?

The status of MLB Network is the same as it has always been, what has changed here and does it help the Dish subscriber base or does it hurt?

These three minor incidents only effect maybe 5% of the subscriber base. Most subscribers could care less about Voom or HD RSNs or MLB Network. More subscribers care about QVC than MLB.

It seems to me that you are grasping at straws trying to explain the past losses of subs and why this quarter is different, unfortunately your logic makes no sense to me.

[Stewart Vernon]

Couldn't we combine this with DISH Network Corporation Announces Conference Call for 2nd Q 2009 Financial Results in a thread with a slightly revised title?

Done... Two threads merged into the bigger existing one about the conference call... and overall new thread renamed to reflect a bit of the extended topic.

[phrelin]

Done... Two threads merged into the bigger existing one about the conference call... and overall new thread renamed to reflect a bit of the extended topic.
Terrific, thanks!

[Hound]

Agreed that all these things affect small percentages of subscriber base. But all the niches
Add up. In my opinion, the difference in net sub gain between D* and. E* over the past
Year has been greatly affected by E*'s lack of niches and D*'s dominance of niches.
When D* acquired MLBEI, it made a statement that it was a great vehicle to add subs
In an environment where sub growth was going to Be difficult.

[BattleZone]

http://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt20/BattleZone/DirecTV-Dish-Network-Subscribers.gif

IMO, Dish did a pretty good job reversing a bad trend, especially given the economy and the fact that 2nd and 3rd quarters are traditionally the slow time of the year. Hopefully they can maintain the momentum!

[phrelin]

Sigh. Well I don't think it's a very good quarterly. Yeah, there is a net gain in subscribers which may have reversed a trend, but as I said before several studies of The Great Recession family spending habits indicate folks were spending more on in-home entertainment including purchasing HD wide-screen TV's. DirecTV reportedly gained 224,000 subscribers from this trend while Dish reversed it's subscriber losses with a gain that was 10% of DirecTV.

Dish management offers numbers which represent their own take on the quarterly at the bottom on numbered page 37 of the quarterly. It's good for a first look. But I do my own take with the numbers and it continues to be alarming.

http://www.phrelin.com/Dish/092qtr.jpg

Assuming I didn't screw the numbers up (yeah, I make mistakes), current assets less current liabilities is still a negative meaning they have $240 million less in current assets than in current liabilities. At first I thought it was a significant improvement over last year, but then I discovered that much of the improvement came from a $136 million gain in accounts receivable with the allowance for uncollectables actually being a lower number.

Operating income without depreciation or the "Tivo Litigation Expense" of $196 million dropped by 19% over last year which isn't so easy to explain. But subscriber related revenue less subscriber related expense dropped only 6% per subscriber, which is fairly easy to explain - TurboHD.

As a corporate entity Dish Network has little wiggle room to handle significant changes in the competitive environment it operates. A 4.5% increase in the "subscriber acquisition costs" over the same quarter in 2008 resulted in 2.8% fewer subscribers and a 7.3% reduction in net subscriber related income.

Finally, absent some huge change, I tend to view the changes in subscriber numbers as relatively unimportant in the company health picture when considering the total number of subscribers and see it as a graph more like this:

http://www.phrelin.com/Dish/subs.jpg

But, I'm just a customer.

[Shades228]

Nevermind answered my own question once I reread the data.

[Jim5506]

My, my, subscribers are up and Dish is still profitable.

Some would make it sound like Dish lost money last quarter - WRONG - they still made a profit, they're in the black.

[Kheldar]

My, my, subscribers are up and Dish is still profitable.

Some would make it sound like Dish lost money last quarter - WRONG - they still made a profit, they're in the black.

Correct, but the thing that Wall Street is concerned about, is that in the first quarter (in 5 quarters) that they gained customers, their profit dropped more than 80%.
Wall Street is just wondering: If it cost them that much to gain that few customers, how much more will they have to spend to gain a higher number of subscribers in Q3?

[phrelin]

As a corporate entity Dish Network has little wiggle room to handle significant changes in the competitive environment it operates.From the DISH Network Announces Debt Offering (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=162964) thread: DISH Network Corporation today announced that its subsidiary, DISH DBS Corporation, plans to offer approximately $1 billion aggregate principal amount of debt securities. The net proceeds of the offering are intended to be used for general corporate purposes. That makes me breath a sigh of relief as it will give the "wiggle room" I've been complaining they lacked since the Echostar/Dish Network split. Interest on $1 billion is likely to be 40¢-50¢ per month per subscriber.;)

[Paul Secic]

Correct, but the thing that Wall Street is concerned about, is that in the first quarter (in 5 quarters) that they gained customers, their profit dropped more than 80%.
Wall Street is just wondering: If it cost them that much to gain that few customers, how much more will they have to spend to gain a higher number of subscribers in Q3?

I really don't care!

[jclewter79]

Well, Tivo suit has something do with profit being down but, if you also notice, Dish Network is paying more money to Echostar this year so, out of one pocket and into the other.