By Michael Calia
Dish Network Corp. said its fourth-quarter profit jumped 38% as
it added subscribers to both its pay-TV and broadband services.
Dish, which has faced tough competition from pay-TV rivals as
well as the proliferation of online entertainment, has been adding
to its broadband subscriber base while struggling to hold on to
pay-TV subscribers. Last month, the company won another legal
victory in its dispute with Fox Broadcasting Co. over ad-skipping
and recording features on Dish's "Hopper" service.
Meanwhile, Dish has been fighting with wireless venture
LightSquared since last year, although LightSquared said that it
would work with Dish's chairman, Charlie Ergen, on restructuring.
Mr. Ergen has a stake in LightSquared's debt. Earlier this month, a
judge ruled that LightSquared could take a bankruptcy loan of $33
million from its bank-debt holders, with more than half the money
coming from Mr. Ergen.
Last month, Dish walked away from a $2.2 billion offer for a
large chunk of LightSquared's spectrum assets.
Also during the fourth quarter, Dish closed all of video-rental
chain Blockbuster's stores in the U.S., as well as its DVD-by-mail
service although it continued running its streaming service under
the brand's name. The company now counts the closed businesses as
discontinued operations.
Dish posted earnings of $288 million, or 63 cents a share, up
from $209.1 million, or 46 cents a share. The year-ago quarter
included a loss of $25 million from discontinued operations,
compared with a loss of $7.1 million in the most recent period.
Revenue rose 6.6% to $3.54 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected earnings of 41
cents a share and revenue of $3.59 billion.
Dish added about 654,000 pay-TV subscribers, versus a gain of
662,000 during the same period in the previous year. The company
ended the period with about nearly 14.06 million pay-TV
subscribers, a slight increase from the figure at the end of the
year-ago period.
The company also added about 80,000 net broadband subscribers in
the fourth quarter, versus additions of 57,000 in the previous
year's quarter. Its broadband subscriber base rose 13% from the
third quarter to 436,000.
EchoStar Corp.--the set-top box maker that spun out of Dish in
2008--posted income of $4.5 million, or five cents a share, down
from $26.2 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue
rose 2.8% to $808.1 million.
EchoStar said it reached a deal to acquire five satellites and
about $11 million in cash from Dish. In exchange, Dish will receive
two issues of preferred tracking stock that will track the
performance of the residential retail satellite business of
EchoStar subsidiary Hughes Network Systems, LLC. The stock
represents 80% of the economic value of the business.
EchoStar said it expects the new satellites to generate about
$145 million in incremental revenue during 2014.
Write to Michael Calia at michael.calia@wsj.com
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