Dish Network says its chief executive officer, Erik Carlson, plans to resign next week after the company reported weak revenue and subscriber figures for its third financial quarter of the year.
On Monday, the company said Carlson will step down as president and CEO of Dish’s paid television business — which includes streaming service Sling TV — on November 12. Between now and then, Carlson will help establish a transfer and delegation of responsibilities.
Hamid Akhavan, the current CEO of Echostar Corporation, is expected to assume the CEO role. In August, Dish and Echostar chairman Charlie Ergen announce plans to recombine the two companies he founded several decades ago. Dish was spun off from Echostar in 2008.
This week, Dish Network revealed it lost around 64,000 pay television subscribers to its Dish-branded satellite service and Sling TV. The majority of the losses were concentrated at Dish, where the company has steadily increased prices in order to offset higher programming-related costs. More than 181,000 customers left Dish during Q3, offsetting subscriber gains at Sling TV, the company’s financial disclosures revealed.
Dish is in the process of continuing to build out its 5G wireless network, which also saw subscriber losses during Q3. Around 228,000 retail wireless customers left Dish during the period, leaving it with 7.5 million subscriber accounts, down from 8 million that was revealed during Q3 2022.
Its business woes helped contribute to a $138.8 million loss during Q3, fully erasing the $410.8 million profit Dish saw during the same period last year. Its revenue was reported at $3.7 billion for the quarter, down from $4.1 billion reported last year.
