A Look at the Numbers

DirecTV announced their second quarter numbers for 2009 today and while the profits may be down DirecTV still has a reason to smile, as they are now the Worlds largest pay television provider factoring in their Latin America service which gives them 24.2 million subscribers worldwide.

DirecTV success has been due to the part that they have been giving customers the channels they want for 15 years now. In addition if you’re a sports fan then you have got to have DirecTV.

DirecTV not only offers all of the sports packages, including the NFL Sunday Ticket, MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass and NHL Center Ice.

Over the years DirecTV has worked hard improving its hardware, new features are being added to their set top boxes all the time. Its public beta testing process called “The Cutting Edge” is the first of its kind in the industry, and testers are willing to help out to make the product better. (And there have been some very good improvements made since the program started including DirecTV’s Video On Demand service, which I feel is the best VOD service ANYWHERE.)

I feel the growth at DirecTV will continue, as well DirecTV. Over the next year I expect DirecTV to once again focus on its High Definition offerings as with a successful satellite launch they could offer over 200 HD channels.

DirecTV has done an excellent job over the years building up its brand, and now is known for being the gold standard of television.

Congrats to DirecTV on another great quarter!

Sirius XM Numbers Announced

I got to admit it I was kind of surprised when I saw Sirius XM’s numbers for the 2nd quarter, I was expecting them to be worse and expected subscriber loss.

The churn rate for Sirius XM declined from 2.2% to 2.0%. While I would expect that number to increase for the 3rd quarter due to cancellations over the recent rate hikes due to royalties, I would predict after that it could be smooth sailing for Sirius XM.

The one thing I did not see reported on the Sirius XM earnings report was a breakdown of how many new subscribers they gained because of their new Sirius XM application for the iPhone.

I have been critical here in “The Satellite Dish” about some of the moves Sirius XM has made over the last year, moves which cost them some very loyal customers, however even with those changes Sirius XM is starting to show some signs of life again.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say the futures looking brighter for Sirius XM.

For those looking for numbers from Dish Network, those numbers will be announced on August 10th.