[Satellite TODAY Insider 08-08-11] DirecTV reported the company’s lowest quarterly net subscriber gain to date at 26,000 during the second quarter of 2011 — a sign that some analysts say could lead to the U.S. satellite pay-TV industry’s first phase of subscriber decline since the mid-1990s.
Sanford Bernstein Analyst Craig Moffett said the operator’s subscriber results, issued Aug. 4, were well below the Wall Street consensus of 57,000. “With today’s below-expectations growth at DirecTV, it seems likely that the satellite industry will post its first-ever quarterly subscriber loss in the United States, with expectations for a small contraction at Dish Network,” Moffett said in a statement. “After weaker-than-expected results at DirecTV, the risk of a more substantial U.S. satellite TV industry subscriber drop has increased.”
DirecTV’s 2011 subscriber growth drop-off was significant compared with its 2010 second quarter, when the operator added 100,000 subscribers and its competitor Dish Network lost 19,000.
DirecTV Chairman and CEO Mike White said its subscriber growth decline was caused by a changing economic climate in the United States. “The pickup in competitive intensity that we saw coming out of the first quarter has yet to abate. U.S. consumers are also increasingly under stress from an ongoing weak economy, however, the second quarter is typically the slowest for pay TV firms as students and retirees move and disconnect their service. There are favorable subscriber trends so far in the third quarter showing that we have also regained some of our lost momentum.”
Moffett warned investors that, historically, the third quarter usually isn’t much better than the second for pay-TV operators in the United States. Moffett also said that the uncertainty regarding the existence of a 2011 NFL football season could have impacted DirecTV’s gross additions in the second quarter, as the operator is the official carrier of the NFL’s popular Sunday Ticket programming package.
“The U.S. pay TV business is already saturated. Subscriber growth is a zero sum game. [EchoStar Chairman] Charlie Ergen has already made clear his disaffection with the core satellite business, and is looking to diversify away, or at least to radically re-craft the portfolio of surrounding assets,” said Moffett.
