Dish posted a net loss of $11 million in the second quarter on revenues of $3.61 billion, as the satellite giant was hit by $438 million of impairment charges linked two of the three satellites acquired through the TerreStar and DBSD deals. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting revenues of $3.65 billion.
Dish notched 624,000 gross video additions in the quarter, off from analyst expectations of 648,000, and 6.2% lower than the year-ago total. That was not enough to weather a decline of about 78,000 net video subs in the quarter, dropping its pay TV total to 14.01 million. ISI Media analyst Vijay Jayant expected Dish to lose 45,000 video subs.
The average revenue per user among pay TV subs was $80.90, ahead of $77.59 a year ago. Dish said pay TV churn rate increased to 1.67%, versus 1.60% in 2012, impacted by its first programming package price increase in two years.
The highlight for the quarter was satellite broadband. Dish added 61,000 net subs in the category, ahead of 11,000 in the year-ago quarter, extending that total to 310,000.
"We are pleased to see continued growth in Hopper receiver take rates, as well as growth in broadband-connected subscribers," said Joseph P. Clayton, DISH president and CEO. "This performance reflects efforts like our DISH Anywhere mobile app and our iPad 2 promotion with Apple, and will set the stage for long-range revenue performance."
Dish shares were up $1.15 (2.56%) to $45.85 each in early trading Tuesday.
“[W]e believe investors will look past this report and think about Chairman/CEO [Charlie] Ergen’s next moves,” Jayant wrote in a research note issued Tuesday, pointing to Dish’s $9.5 billion of cash and marketable securities on hand. “We think commentary on plans to monetize its spectrum assets and/or consolidate its DBS assets will be bigger drivers of the equity."
