Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) had a successful first quarter when it came to adding subscribers to the fold and generating revenue. The company wasn't quite as successful when it came to net income.
The Dish pay TV subscriber universe swelled by 40,000 new customers in the first quarter and now stands at 14.097 million pay TV subscribers, compared to 14.092 during the first quarter of last year. Dish also added about 53,000 net broadband subscribers in the first quarter and now has 489,000.
Overall revenue was up year-over-year to $3.59 billion compared to $3.38 billion in 2013, but net income dropped to $176 million compared to the year-ago number of $216 million.
Pay TV ARPU also improved to $82.36 compared to $78.44 in the quarter, and churn rate was down to 1.42 percent versus 1.47 percent in 2013, a company press release reported.
Dish, like its bigger sibling satellite provider DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV), has been the subject of rampant merger speculation, especially in the wake of Comcast's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) $45.2 billion bid to take over Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC). DirecTV, which had been courted by Dish, is reportedly getting closer to a deal with AT&T (NYSE: T) and Dish itself is the subject of industry whispers.
All that is talk that might not be influenced by quarterly results, one way or the other, Hudson Square Research analyst Todd Rethemeier told Bloomberg.
"Both Dish and DTV know that there are a lot of benefits of a merger, either with each other or a carrier," Rethemeier said, dismissing any impact quarterly results--good or bad--would have on M&A talk.
For more:
- Dish has this earnings press release
- and Bloomberg has this story
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