Echostar continued to grapple with a shrinking pay television business during the second quarter (Q2) of the year, which had a material impact on its revenue for the period.
On Friday, Echostar disclosed it lost 289,000 pay TV subscribers across its satellite-based Dish Network and streaming Sling TV businesses as customers switch to on-demand video options and competitors. Overall, Echostar ended the quarter with 7.108 million pay television customers, including 5.323 million that pay for Dish and 1.785 million Sling TV subscribers.
Echostar did not break out Dish Network and Sling TV subscribers in its earnings press release, opting instead to combine the two pay TV businesses into a single count. The separate figures were disclosed in Echostar’s 10-Q filing made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Once seen as the alternative to the expensive pay TV package, Echostar has faced increasing pressure from competing services like DirecTV, which launched streaming, genre-based packages earlier this year, the cheapest of which costs $20 per month. By comparison, Sling TV’s cheapest plans, called Sling Orange and Sling Blue, start at $46 per month, though some customers pay more if they live in an area where Disney owns the local ABC station.
Other services like Philo and Frndly TV also undercut Sling TV on price, though neither service offers live sports channels or the top three cable news networks.
It wasn’t all bad news: Echostar reported 1.3 percent pay TV churn, the lowest in a decade, not including the pandemic years. The data point suggested most people who were thinking about dropping Dish or Sling TV have already done so, and the customers who are left over are more loyal to either service.
Revenue attributed to Dish Network and Sling TV clocked in at $2.46 billion, an 8 percent dip from the $2.68 billion reported during Q2 2024. Average revenue per user, or ARPU, attributed to Echostar’s pay TV businesses climbed 3 percent to $111.74, the end result of price adjustments across Dish Network and Sling TV over time.
Overall revenue for the quarter was $3.72 billion, down from $3.95 billion reported a year ago. Net loss clocked inat $306 million during Q2, up about $100 million from the prior year. The figure includes other business segments, including Echostar’s satellite unit and its wireless division.
On the wireless side, Echostar added around 212,000 new lines, a sign that Dish Wireless and Boost Mobile are starting to gain some traction. Churn in the wireless segment improved to 2.69 percent. The company ended Q2 with 7.36 million wireless lines and $935 million in revenue.
While EchoStar’s diversified business lines showed signs of operational progress, the company remains weighed down by high capital expenditures — over $746 million in Q2 alone — driven primarily by ongoing investments in its wireless and satellite infrastructure.
Executives reiterated their commitment to achieving positive operating free cash flow in the future, but they offered no new timeline for when profitability might return.
