Dish Profits Down

It was revealed on Monday that satellite TV provider Dish Network DISH had a mixed first quarter, adding subscribers but seeing net income fall 34%. In addition, revenue growth missed Wall Street expectations. Following the news, shares in DISH dropped $1.25, or 4%, to $30.07 in Monday morning trading. However, it is no surprise that the profit dropped. In reality, the year-ago figure is unrepresentative of the company's performance that year, it was a one off, buoyed as it was by the settlement figure from a lawsuit with TiVo TIVO. It has been an eventful year for Dish Network, with the company buying Blockbuster out of bankruptcy in 2011. It says that it has added 104,000 net subscribers in the January-March quarter, ending it with a total of roughly 14.1 million subscribers. In the previous year, it added 58,000 subscribers, so it is picking up people at an increasing rate. Even with profits down, that has to be something worth celebrating. As for the numbers, net income for the first quarter was down to $360.3 million from $549.4 million. Earnings dropped to 80 cents per share from $1.22, which still beat analyst estimates of 71 cents per share. Revenue shot up 11% to $3.58 billion from $3.22 billion.