Dish Network reported the loss of another 100,000 customers in the first quarter for its virtual pay TV platform, Sling TV.
The loss actually represents a marked deceleration in decline, with Sling TV bleeding 281,000 customers in the first quarter of 2020. It lost 118,000 subscribers in Q4.
Sling TV has around 2.374 million remaining subscribers and ranks as the No. 3 virtual MVPD platform, trailing Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV--two platforms that entered the market several years after Sling TV.
Dish Network reported the loss of 130,000 satellite TV customers, dropping its base below 8.7 million users.
Again, for Dish, the overall drop of 230,000 TV customers in Q1 compares favorable to year-ago comparables of 413,000 lost video souls.
Dish is set to conduct its quarterly earnings call Thursday morning. During the Q4 call in February, company co-founder and chairman Charlie Ergen conceded the company "stumbled" in managing Sling TV.
As the oldest vMVPD, Sling TV “should have more market share” among virtual pay TV providers, Dish chairman Ergen said.
“We stumbled a little there with the quality of the user experience,” Ergen said. “Our network was the best and the first, but we got a little complacent.”
