Dish Network Passes 8,000,000 Customer Milestone

[John Corn]

LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 2002--EchoStar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:DISH) announced today that its DISH Network(TM) satellite television service passed the 8 million customer milestone during November 2002.

With the addition of over 1 million net new subscribers to date in 2002, DISH Network continues as America's fastest growing multichannel video provider.

DISH Network also offers the lowest all digital TV price in the U.S., with the popular America's Top 50 programming package at only $22.99 per month. DISH Network is a trademark of EchoStar Communications Corporation. DISH Network is EchoStar's state-of-the-art direct broadcast satellite TV system that is capable of offering over 500 channels of digital video and CD-quality audio programming, as well as advanced hardware and installation. EchoStar is included in the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) which contains the largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq Stock Market. DISH Network currently serves 8 million customers.

http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=dish&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=360303

[gcutler]

Do you know what are D*'s #s?

[Jasonbp]

I don't care if it's E* or D*. That's alot of happy non-cable people!! ;)

[greg_n]

DIRECTV Achieves 11 Millionth Customer Milestone

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021106/60327_1.html

[Jacob S]

How long has it been since DirecTv hit 8 million customers?

Is Dish Network catching up with DirecTv in subscriber counts?

[gcutler]

Well I think the services have become almost indistinguishable except for the sports channel or foreign channel offerings and the Dual Tuner PVR options. But everyone I have spoken to over the past year have gone D*, so my sampling is obvious different than most.

[Steve Mehs]

Originally posted by Jacob S
How long has it been since DirecTv hit 8 million customers?

Is Dish Network catching up with DirecTv in subscriber counts?

I think D* might have hit 8M 2 years ago. In sub#s for the past year check out

http://www.skyreport.com/dth_counts.shtm

[Karl Foster]

I think what has helped E* grow so quickly is aggressive marketing. The AT50 for $22.99 is a good deal for most people and Directv doesn't offer any packages that are that small. It is a good introductory offer for most subs, many of whom will upgrade to a larger package later. I don't know how profitable it is for them, but they have surely grown fast. At some point, though, they will need to move into a customer retention/profit mode, rather than pure growth. Still it is a great milestone for them.

[Bill D]

I remember back in 1999 when I got Dish it was like under 2 million, you could also call and get great customer service quickly...

[Jacob S]

Wow, look at the growth, wonder if Dish could hit 10 million? I think its possible, but have heard that satellite growth is going to start to slack off, and they should work on customer retention. Instead of putting money into new customers they need to put money in the loyal customers they have now and have been with them all of these years. That would save them a lot of money right there and give them the extra revenue for getting new subs. It would make sub growth look a lot more healthy.

[Steve Mehs]

From various flyers and press releases I've gathered over the years.

January 1998
D*/USSB - 3 Million
E* - 900,000
P*- 1.8 Million

May 1999
D* - 4.8 Million
P* - 2.3 Million (at buy out)

Last November
D* - 10 Million
E* - 6.4 Million

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Jacob S
Instead of putting money into new customers they need to put money in the loyal customers they have now and have been with them all of these years.The free Showtime promo for long-time and inconvenienced customers is a step in the right direction for E* in customer retention. They should also offer an discount on the PVRs for long-time customers. I'm sure plenty of people would go after that.

[jeffwtux]

IMHO, the biggest difference now is the Latino packages. DirecTV's Latino packages totally blow away Dish's. For $31.99 Dish gives you about 14 Spanish channels and about 25-30 English channels. For the same price Direc gives you about the same # of Spanish channels but over 60 English channels. They give you more English channels than on Dish's $40.99 DishLatino Max package. I now realize that as a Dish retailer, I have no hope whatsoever of selling to this market(albeit a small one still in the Metro Detroit area). No promotion can overcome that.

[jeffwtux]

The only thing that Dish gives you in the Latino package is Playboy for free.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Kevin
The free Showtime promo for long-time and inconvenienced customers is a step in the right direction for E* in customer retention. They should also offer an discount on the PVRs for long-time customers. I'm sure plenty of people would go after that.

They have the $199 for a 508 for existing customers. Not bad for a 60 hour pvr for existing customers.

[Jacob S]

The only two promotions I know that they offer current customers are $199 501/508 upgrade which requires a credit card and one year commitment to top150 package, and then the free showtime deal, but this would leave out a lot of customers still yet. Not all of them have a credit card and do not want a 501/508.

Maybe if they combined another deal with the 501/508 offer without a credit card requirement giving them a free 501/508 if they come up with a few referrals and subscribe to top150 for a year, then that would help a lot too. That would make it seem like they were getting a lot for each customer, about $150 when it is only costing dish $100 per customer since they would have only had to pay $200 for the pvr under the deal anyways. The customer and Dish both wins.

They could even go on to say that it requires three customers and the customer gets a $50 discount for customer #1 referred for a total of $150, another $50 off for $100 total for two referred, and free after the third referral.

This is just one example, modify the deals they have now and add a few deals for the current subscribers. Maybe even have an offer for a new 301 for free or a cheap price when one orders or upgrades to a certain package for a period of one year. They could add it as a second receiver.

[little billy]

With an extra million customers under Dish's belt....Do you guys think they finally have enough money to get the YES NETWORK!