M+E Connections

Dish Network sees its Sling TV over-the-top (OTT) streaming service as being “well positioned to perform in the dynamic marketplace, but we also need to execute,” according to W. Erik Carlson, the company’s CEO and president.

His comment Feb. 19 on Dish’s earnings call for the fourth quarter (ended Dec. 31) came as the company reported Sling TV lost subscribers for the first time – a decline that CFO Paul Orban chalked up to “increased competition and disconnects related to the football season ending.”

Although Sling TV subscribers grew to 2.592 million in Q4 from 2.417 million a year earlier, Sling lost 94,000 customers in the quarter from 2.686 million in Q3. That quarter-over-quarter decline “compared to a net gain of 47,000 in the fourth quarter last year,” Carlson said.

However, there are “a few points on this to consider,” he told analysts. First, he said: “Obviously, the streaming ecosystem is changing quite a bit…. The dynamics of the broader OTT market changed late last year with the wind down” of the Sony PlayStation Vue service and the “introduction of additional streaming providers that launched with aggressive promotional offers.”

Dish’s “goal at Sling is to… focus on user experience” and “our focus on best of live makes it really a perfect complement for the growing crowd” of subscription video on demand (SVOD) players, Carlson said.

The company is “dedicated to offering flexibility at the best price point,” he also said, noting: “You can see that with some of the added features and functionality we brought the service in the fourth quarter, including expanded live news offerings that included the launch” of Fox News and the new Sling Blue option for $30 a month that offers access to 45+ live channels; a free cloud digital video recorder (DVR) that “provides a consistent experience for all TV subscribers… and updated channel line-ups in both” the Blue package and $30-a-month Orange option that includes 30+ channels including Disney Channel and ESPN.

Dish, meanwhile, continues to ready a 5G broadband network, its executives told analysts. The recent decision by Judge Victor Marrero of the United States District Court in Manhattan in favor of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger marked a “key step forward as we look to acquire Boost Mobile from Sprint and activate” a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement with T-Mobile, Carlson said.

“As ever, our goal is to spur competition and promote America’s leadership in 5G,” he told analysts.

What remains unclear is if Dish will partner with another firm for its 5G wireless network buildout. Although company executives indicated that while they’re open to a strategic partnership with another major firm, such as a technology platform leader, they don’t see a partnership as being absolutely necessary.

“We look at strategic partnerships in a number of… ways, and not all of those are financial,” Charlie Ergen, chairman and company co-founder, said during the Q&A. Dish may partner with a company that has infrastructure in place and it may make sense for Dish to “build out some of those things ourselves.”

However, Ergen said: “In terms of anybody that we look at strategically, the first step is that they’ve got to be aligned on our view, on our vision of where wireless can go, and we have a pretty solid view of where we think wireless can go.”

Dish saw an “increase in interest from prospective partners” that “ramped further” after Judge Marrero’s decision, according to Tom Cullen, EVP-corporate development. But he said: “We don’t feel any particular urgency around striking a strategic partnership at this point.”

Dish said in July it was committed to building a standalone 5G broadband network available to at least 70% of the U.S. population by June 2023.