What happened
Satellite-TV broadcasting might be a struggling industry, but on Tuesday, a flag-bearer for that business saw a nice little pop in its share price. That company is Dish Network (DISH), which simultaneously published its latest set of quarterly results and announced a major merger. This got investors excited enough to send the company's share price nearly 10% higher on the day.
So what
Dish Network's second-quarter figures weren't impressive, but at the same time they weren't disappointing. The company booked revenue of $3.91 billion for the period, which was down from the $4.21 billion in the second quarter of 2022. A steeper decline was recorded on the bottom line: a profit of just over $200 million ($0.31 per share), against the year-ago surplus of almost $523 million.
But this was largely anticipated by analysts, as those headline numbers were broadly in line with their consensus estimates.
Customer numbers were down across the board for the company. Its pay-TV subscriber count fell to 8.9 million from the year-ago tally of almost 10 million. Ditto for Dish TV satellite customers (down to 6.9 million from 7.6 million), clients of the Sling TV streaming service (2 million from nearly 2.2 million), and Boost Mobile users (7.7 million from almost 7.9 million).
Now what
It wasn't those results that got investors excited. Rather, they're looking forward to that merger, which will see Dish Network join forces with satellite services and communications company EchoStar (SATS -0.12%). The all-stock deal will see EchoStar investors receive 2.85 shares of Dish Network class A common stock for each EchoStar share they currently own.
When completed, current Dish Network stockholders will hold around 69% of the combined entity. The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies. It is subject to a vote by EchoStar and Dish Network shareholders, and approval from the relevant regulatory bodies.
