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Dish adds 241,000 subscribers, makes less money off customers

November 9th, 2009, 3:00 pm by

Dish Network logoSatellite TV service is on a roll: Number two Dish Network said this morning that it signed up more customers despite the economy.

The company added 241,000 net new subscribers in the three months, ended Sept. 30. That’s much better than last year when Dish lost 10,000 customers.

Satellite rival DirecTV also added customers, while cable providers Time Warner Cable and Comcast both reported losing customers. Cox Cable is privately held and does not report its results. Internet-based TV providers Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse both saw increases.

One reason is price. A look at Dish Network’s current “Best Deal” offers first-time customers 100+ channels for $24.99 a month with a 1-year commitment (regular price is $39.99/month). (Time Warner Cable’s standard rate for digital cable’s 200+ channels is $42, though a 2-year commitment can push the price lower.)

Such discounts pushed Dish’s expenses 5.8 percent higher than last year, up $89 million to $1.623 billion, according to the company’s regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

TV service 3Q new subscribers
AT&T U-verse 240,000
Comcast -656,000
Cox n/a
DirecTV 136,000
Dish Network 241,000
Time Warner Cable -84,000
Verizon FiOS 191,000

Part of that higher expense also went to higher programming fees, which the TV channels charge on a per-subscriber basis.

All of this ultimately meant that Dish made a little less money per customer than last year. Dish’s average revenue per customer declined to $69.51, compared to $69.82 in third quarter last year.

But if you’re a customer and you feel like you’re paying more, you are. The decline was offset by price increases in Feb. 2009.

Overall, Dish made less money than third quarter last year. The Englewood, Colo. company said it made $81 million on $2.89 billion in revenues, down from last year’s income of $92 million on $2.94 billion.

Dish ended the quarter with 13.851 million subscribers, which is nearly 1 million more than Time Warner Cable.

Recent telecom company earnings reports:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

DirecTV gets bigger, charges more

November 5th, 2009, 5:24 pm by

DirecTV DirecTV must be doing something right — it made more money than last year and continued to add new subscribers during its third quarter, which ended Sept. 30.

The El Segundo satellite TV service added 136,000 net new subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total to 18.4 million customers. While the subscriber growth is lower than the same time last year, DirecTV is growing.

Comparably, both the number one and two cable companies saw their subscriber count drop during the same period. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, lost 656,000 video customers during the quarter, while second-place Time Warner Cable lost 84,000 customers.

DirecTV’s interim chief executive Larry Hunter attributed the subscriber growth to marketing its service with AT&T. Sales growth — revenues were up 10 percent from a year ago to $5.47 billion — came from more people subscribing to its HD and DVR services, plus growth in Latin America.

But consumers should keep in mind that DirecTV’s sales growth also meant higher prices. The company said the average customer’s bill increased 2.1 percent to $85.32. Customers are paying more for programs, HD channels and DVR service fees. Then again, DirecTV is the only company that offers programming like NFL Sunday Ticket, a $200 package.

Meanwhile, DirecTV’s payment to TV networks in order to offer channels increased 1.2 percent per subscriber. DirecTV spent nearly $2 billion on programming costs.

Read DirecTV’s third-quarter 2009 earnings report HERE.

Earlier on DirecTV:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • | 3 Comments »

Time Warner loses 84,000 customers, makes less money

November 5th, 2009, 7:53 am by

Time Warner Cable signIt was another rough quarter for Time Warner Cable, which lost TV customers, posted lower profits and saw a drop in premium channel subscriptions. It lost 84,000 video customers by the end of the third quarter, ended Sept. 30, compared with the second quarter.

But in almost all other areas, the cable TV provider grew: It added more Internet and phone customers, more digital cable customers and more multi-package customers. That helped offset the exodus of video subscribers to a loss of 25,000 customers. Overall sales were up 4 percent, to $4.5 billion, compared with $4.3 billion last year.

The company has been losing video customers as new TV services like Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse enter the market and customers head for the Web to view TV shows on their own time.

2Q 2008 3Q 2008 4Q 2008 1Q 2009 2Q 2009 3Q 2009
TW video
subscribers		 13,297k 13,266k 13,069k 13,105k 13,048k 12,964k
Change -31,000 -197,000 36,000 -57,000 -84,000

While the number of customers fell less than 1 percent, to 14.652 million subscribers, Time Warner got a bit more money from each one. Subscription revenues grew 5 percent, to $4.3 billion, thanks to more digital video, Internet and phone customers. Separating out video alone, Time Warner made 2 percent more off TV subscribers, coming in at $2.698 billion in the third quarter, compared with $2.639 billion a year earlier.

Still, Time Warner made less money than it did a year ago. Net income fell 11 percent, to $258 million, compared with $301 million a year earlier. Part of that was because it had to pay more for the TV channels it offers customers. The cost of video programming grew 6 percent, to $1 billion. In the first 9 months this year, Time Warner spent a whopping $3 billion in programming fees, up 7 percent from last year (see its quarterly filing, page 8).

Meanwhile, more customers dropped basic video and premium channel subscriptions.

In the chart below, Time Warner notes that about 13 million pay for plain-ol’ cable TV service. About two-thirds also pay for digital cable and high-speed Internet. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • | 55 Comments »

Boost Mobile boosts Sprint’s quarter with new subscribers

October 29th, 2009, 11:03 am by

Boost MobileWhoa! Irvine’s little ol’ prepaid wireless carrier isn’t so little anymore. So far this year, Boost Mobile has added 2.1 million net new customers. That helped limit parent company Sprint Nextel to just a 135,000 net loss of retail subscribers during the July to September quarter (ouch).

Another ouch – Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse considered the quarter the company’s “best net retail subscriber results in more than two years,” according to the press release. Sprint now has 48.3 million customers, down from 48.8 million in the second quarter and down from 49.1 million in the first quarter.

Boost is obviously a bright spot. Boost Mobile said it grew 14.4 percent this year over last year. It credits the $50 monthly unlimited plan, which Boost introduced in January. It also got another boost from adding new retailers like Sam’s Club and Car Toys.

Also from today’s earnings release, which categorizes all of Sprint’s prepaid services under one line item:

  • Sprint now has 5.7 million prepaid subscribers (5.2 million on iDEN and 500,000 on CDMA)
  • Churn rate, or the percent of customers coming and going, was down to 6.65 percent during the quarter for prepaid customers, compared to 8.16 percent a year ago and 6.38 percent in the second quarter of 2009. The improvement was attributed to the new unlimited plan.
  • Sprint is making more money off each prepaid customer than before. Prepaid average customer revenues during the quarter was $35 compared to $31 in the year-ago period and $34 in the second quarter of 2009.

Rival MetroPCS plans to release its results next Thursday.

More on cell, mobile services:


Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local cell phone services

Posted in: Cell phones • • • • • • | Comments Off

Verizon FiOS TV losing steam? Growth rate slips

October 26th, 2009, 12:40 pm by

Update: Added several East Coast states that got FiOS in recent months. See addendum below.
—————————-

Verizon FiOS signVerizon’s FiOS TV service continues to grow, but not quite as fast as it used to.

From July to September, 191,000 people signed up to get TV service from Verizon FiOS, bringing the number of subscribers to the cable TV alternative to 2.7 million nationwide, according to the company’s third-quarter financial report this morning.

But 191,000 is about a 33 percent decline from the most recent quarter. Even compared to Verizon’s year-ago quarter, the number is lower. The last time Verizon’s net new customers didn’t break the 200,000 mark was in the second quarter of 2008.  Is Verizon’s FiOS TV service losing steam?

The growth rate decline was a big letdown. Sanford Bernstein, and analyst with Craig Moffett, called the drop in FiOS growth rates a “clear disappointment,” according to the Associated Press report. Wall Street had expected growth of 253,000 net new customers.

By comparison, AT&T said last week that its U-verse TV service added 240,000 customers during the quarter. Both U-verse and FiOS are offering TV services to compete with local cable companies.

Here’s a comparison chart of the growth of FiOS TV:

Verizon FiOS TV 3Q07 4Q07 1Q08 2Q08 3Q08 Q408
New 202,000 226,000 263,000 176,000 233,000 303,000
Total (in millions) 0.7 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.9

2009:

1Q09 2Q09 3Q09
299,000 300,000 191,000
2.2 2.5 2.7

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Internet • Video & TV • • • • • • | 6 Comments »

AT&T adds 240k U-verse customers, millions of iPhone users

October 22nd, 2009, 12:33 pm by

AT&TAT&T offered another update on the health of its U-verse TV and Internet service in this morning’s quarterly earnings report. It’s still growing!

The company added 240,000 net new TV customers, which brings the number of U-verse subscribers to 1.8 million nationwide. That’s up 1 million customers from the same time last year.

More than three-fourths of U-verse TV subscribers also purchase Internet, home phone or wireless phone service from AT&T. See the chart on the lower right for the growth of U-verse customers in the past year.

U-verse is offered in several Orange County cities. But as many residents know, that doesn’t mean you can order service. In some cities, the company has been unable to get permits to place large utility boxes in neighborhoods. For more details, see my earlier series of stories about AT&T’s struggles in seven Orange County cities – Cypress, Dana Point, Irvine, Lake Forest, Newport Beach, San Clemente and Tustin.

AT&T's U-verse subscriber growth, third quarter 2009Still, in the 225 cities where service is available, 20 million households nationwide can order service. With around 1.8 million paying customers, the U-verse penetration is approximately 12 percent. In California, U-verse is available to 3 million homes and businesses.

Combined with customers who order satellite TV service, AT&T had 4 million video customers.

As for high-speed U-verse Internet, AT&T added 252,000 net new subscribers during the third quarter. That helped the loss of at least 162,000 DSL customers. Combining its U-verse, DSL and 3G wireless Internet customers, AT&T had 17.1 million broadband customers by the end of the quarter, up 138,000 customers during the quarter.

For those keeping track of Apple iPhone users, AT&T activated a whopping 3.2 million iPhones during the quarter. About 40 percent of the iPhone activations were customers new to AT&T. Overall, the company added 2 million wireless subscribers. While this makes it AT&T’s best third-quarter in five years, the company apparently lost a big chunk of customers. Still, AT&T ended the quarter with 81.6 million wireless customers.

The company made $3.2 billion (attributed to AT&T operations) on $30.9 billion in revenues. That was about the same as third-quarter last year, when AT&T made $3.2 billion on revenues of $31.3 billion.

More earnings news:

Posted in: iPhone • Video & TV • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Dish Network adds subscribers for first time in 15 months

August 10th, 2009, 2:12 pm by

Dish Network logoDish Network’s turn today to fill us in on its health: It grew for the first time in 15 months.

The company, which admitted to poor customer service last quarter, either made good on its efforts to improve service or offered some hard-to-beat promotions.

Judging from its financial results — net income dropped to $63 million in the second quarter, compared to $336 million a year ago — I’d say the latter. Revenues fell just a tad, 0.4 percent, to $2.9 billion. The company also cited “new sales and marketing initiatives” as a contributing factor to its growth.

Dish spent a cringe-worthy$708 per subscriber on its “subscriber acquisition cost,” up from last year’s $699 per subscriber. At least the company is making more money per customer: $70.73 this year versus $69.38 last year.

During the quarter, Dish added 26,000 net subscribers, ending with 13.610 million subscribers on June 30. As mentioned in its regulatory filing, this was the first time in five quarters that the company added a net number of subscribers. Still, for the year, its total subscriber base is down 68,000 subscribers from the prior year.

The company blamed economic conditions, the end of its partnership with AT&T and competition from Internet-based TV services.

However, Dish’s growth continues the trend that is seeing Internet and satellite TV companies grow while cable TV companies are losing customers. Here are links to second quarter 2009 earnings reports from TV services available in Orange County:

Recent TV news:


Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | Comments Off

DirecTV made $83.16 per customer as subscribership grows

August 6th, 2009, 8:05 am by

DirecTV DirecTV is on a roll. It continued to add new subscribers during its second quarter, thanks to a partnership to bundle TV service with AT&T phone and Internet service.

During the quarter, it added a net 224,000 subscribers, which brings its total customer base to 18.3 million. That’s only half of the 460,000 the satellite TV service added during its first quarter this year, but any growth is much better than the declines the cable companies are experiencing.

By comparison, Time Warner Cable lost 11,000 subscribers in its most recent quarter and Comcast’s subscribers dropped 2.7 percent or 214,000 (Cox is a private company and doesn’t report quarterly numbers). The much smaller Internet-based TV services grew the most: Verizon FiOS added 300,000 TV customers to total 2.5 million, and AT&T U-verse TV added 248,000 subscribers for a total of 1.6 million.

Overall, DirecTV said it made less money during the quarter than the prior year, with net income falling 11 percent from last year to $407 million. At the same time, revenues increased 9 percent to $5.22 billion. The company blamed declines on higher interest expenses and unfavorable exchange rates in Latin American. But sales grew thanks to its partnership with AT&T.

The average customer bill also jumped up 1.7 percent to $83.16, thanks to higher HD and DVR service fees that offset discounts for new and existing customers. Even so, its customers are cutting back in some areas: DirecTV made less money from premium movies. 

For more details, see DirecTV’s press release or listen in to the 11 a.m. conference call at this link.

More TV news:


Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • | 15 Comments »

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