Dish Earnings Up. Subscribers Down
If you read my Friday edition of The Satellite Dish then today’s numbers from Dish Network should have been no surprise to you.
I was not surprised at all to hear that Dish lost over 100,000 customers in the last quarter of 2008. This is Dishes largest and 3rd consecutive subscriber loss for Dish Network. At least Charlie didn’t try blaming the loss on the economy and piracy as he did last time.
On the noon time earnings call Ergen sounded nervous with lots of “umm’s” being heard so many umm’s in fact I though I was listening to a Chase Carey call instead. You could tell at times that Charlie was trying to carefully choose his words but some of the things he said on today’s call had me once again yelling “what” at my computer.
One of the first comments that had me shaking my head is when Charlie said their goal for 2008 was “In 2008, our goal was to stop getting worse,” and then he said “This year we’re prepared to get better.”
I don’t know if Charlie look at his reports for the last 4 quarters, but obviously they haven’t finished getting worse yet.
Charlie should have grabbed the bulls by the horns and let shareholders know what he is planning on doing to make things at Dish Network better. The floor was open for him to push his company ahead but he didn’t take it.
Another thing that had me screaming at my computer was when Charlie said, “I believe that we have the best video product out there.” And then went on to say “if consumers were omniscient and had a choice between us or our competitors for video I believe that they would pick our product more often then not.”
What? Has Charlie noticed that DirecTV has been having positive growth while his company has been having negative growth? Consumers have a choice in their competitors for video and they are not picking Dish Network. That’s what the numbers show so what numbers has Charlie been looking at?
One thing I can agree with Charlie about is that their marketing needs a lot of work. If you have been reading my writings over the years you would know this is has been something I have been hounding Dish about over the years. Charlie himself said this his marketing was making his company look like a “second tier” company.
One thing that Charlie needs to do is learn to spend money to make money. Instead of focusing on low price low quality commercials what he needs to do is go to the tops of mountains telling consumers that his product is the best. He has been doing it with the equipment but now he needs to do it with the complete service as well. He really needs to brand the Dish Network brand name into people’s heads. Charlie needs to go and watch the movie “Field of Dreams” and heed the words that echo through the movie. “If you build it they will come!”
Yes Charlie can turn Dish around, but will he open up the company wallet enough to make the company the world-class company it should be? That is the question that remains to be answered.
Another thing Charlie needs to fix is his customer service. It is time to close the foreign call centers and invest back here in the United States. Customers do not like calling for help and getting some guy name Sam who can no speak the English language. As I have seen from reports online, calls like this only get customers more frustrated, sometimes frustrated enough to cancel their service. Again this requires Dish to open their wallet to make it happen. It should be noted that when all of Dish Network’s customer service was based here in the United States Dish Network use to win the customer service awards year after year? When the call centers went offshore the awards stopped flowing. That fact along should set off some alarms.
In the next edition we will look further into things and will talk about if the word “free” is a good word to gain new customers or not.
Goodbye Paul Harvey
Just wanted to take a moment and pay my respects to the late great Paul Harvey who passed away this weekend.
I grew up listening to him and always enjoyed hearing the rest of the story from him. Over the years there was no local radio station carrying his broadcast so when I was traveling if I heard Paul Harvey come on I would always stop and listen.
His unique view on things, his voice and his way with words always had me feeling better about myself by the end of the broadcast. No matter how bad a mood I was in by the end of his broadcasts I was always smiling.
Thank you Paul Harvey for everything, you will be missed… GOOD DAY!
whytakcrap commented:
Besides pirating ,Like its been said .Dish does care of its customer either .They go on making mistakes and in the long run .The Customer rather take his business elsewhere or just not deal with DN .A customers dollar is hard earned in this time .
billr1949 commented:
The main reason DISH has lost subscribers is because there are thousands of pirates using Free to Air boxes to receive DISH. Why would anybody pay 60 dollars per month for a basic package when you can have all the Pay for view movies, Pay for view sports, everything for the cost of a hundred dollar Free to Air box?. DISH needs to encrypt their signal like Direct TV did several years ago to stop the loss of subscribers . Just my humble opinion.
Voom and Goltv commented:
I can not speak on why Dish subs are down, but I drop Dish because of dropping Voom and Goltv.
Soccer is starting to pay off in America, and Dish should reconcider putting back on its\’ lineup Voom Worldsports and Goltv
Voom and Goltv commented:
I can not speak on why Dish subs are down, but I drop Dish because of dropping Voom and Goltv.
Soccer is starting to pay off in America, and Dish should reconcider putting back on its\’ lineup Voom Worldsports and Goltv
Bob commented:
I still miss GOL TV. Charles Ergen runs Dish Network as if he were the second coming. Of Jack Benny.
Reader commented:
Scott is that self described "expert" who somehow is in the know, despite spending his entire day simply surfing the net and spending time in his silly chat forum www.SatelliteGuys.us Scott is no more knowledgeable than the next guy who buys Dish Network or Directv. Basically, he doesn't have a clue
Chuck commented:
The removal of Voom, and now Smithsonian has me thinking about canceling pay TV entirely. There is next to nothing to watch on Dish that isn't commercial and pop-up graphic ridden. If it weren't for my need to retain ESPN2 for the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, I think I really would cancel and go with only OTA/Roku/DVDs.
MktgGuy commented:
Scott - you hit it right on the head with the marketing comment. The marketing is done mostly in-house (even the TV spots I believe). They need to turn everything upside down and then hire a real external advertising agency to help them reinvent their brand. Stat.
They had the HD channel count lead until very recently and let DirecTV take over the conversation. They have arguably the best equipment with a supplier they completely control. It\’s not too late, but it\’s getting close.
Frankly, I think a lot of people there stood around for most of 2007 and early 2008 waiting for the phone call from DirecTV or AT&T that they were being bought.
They have a great entrepreneurial spirit; it\’s time refocus on what made them successful before. Time to shake it off and get down to it.
Kerri commented:
Charlie is an idiot - lets face facts! He makes horrible business decisions, is a modern day miser with his cash pays employees nothing and treats his employees like slaves dictating what time they go to lunch (I mean who does that!!!??) and monitors there every move with a badge system that tells where they at any time and makes sure they work 8 houre shifts! Whoa! Sounds like the captain has gone overboard and a bit coo-coo
hookc commented:
Scott, Ergen’s conference call and the earlier formal earnings statement aren’t exactly carbon copies. CNBC cites Reuters news service in reporting “Dish Network attributed the loss of subscribers during the year to several factors, including weaker economic conditions, aggressive promotional and retention offerings by its competition, and the ailing housing market. It also cited \”the growth of fiber-based and Internet-based pay TV providers, signal theft and other forms of fraud, and operational inefficiencies at Dish Network.\”
Analysis of growing Dish woes, from you and other reporters, must put more emphasis on programming. Albeit repetitious to ask, why won’t Charlie address what seems to be a growing anti-sports attitude at Dish. We who love sports, and who would dump the service in a heartbeat if not for contract constraints, become more disheartened by the day. No MLB Channel; no opportunity to buy an out-of-market baseball package and Dish failure to carry popular regional networks like The Mountain (Uni. of Utah, BYU). These are facts that turn subscribers into frenzied Dish haters, driving them away.
flyloc2 commented:
I think dish also needs to do away with the \”per DVR\” fee. That is what is preventing me from adding DVR\’s to rest of my TV\’s.
Esteban commented:
Thanks for your Paul Harvey comments. He was a true American icon, and I like you, loved the slice of rural Americana he always reminded me of. Good DAY !
GURU commented:
You should not assume that because they do not know how to speak english that automatically it is a foreign call center….they have 95% of their calls come through the US but the call centers are very diversified so you may have someone with an accent but is 100% american.
Reaper commented:
I'll say it again, this all started when they dropped the VOOM Networks. There was something about dropping 15 exclusively HD stations without warning that upset a lot of people. I know that I dropped Dish like a hot potato when they did that.