With its chief rival Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) battling CBS Corp., Turner Networks and Fox News in the fourth quarter, DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) saw a flurry of refugee subscribers join its ranks.
DirecTV reported a gain of 149,000 new U.S. customers in Q4, up from 93,000 in the fourth quarter of 2013--and a nice little uptick over the previous two quarters, during which the satellite operator lost 62,000 customers.
In its earnings release published Thursday, DirecTV said the uptick was partly due to "competitor programming disputes."
DirecTV ended 2014 with 20.4 million U.S. subscribers, adding 99,000 for the full year--down from 163,000 in 2013.
The company reported Q4 revenue of $8.92 billion, up 4 percent and in line with analysts' expectations.
DirecTV will conduct its fourth quarter conference call with investors Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. EST.
For more:
- read this DirecTV earnings release
- read this Variety story
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