Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar reported net pay-TV subscribers declined by about 168,000 in the fourth quarter, compared to a decline of approximately 253,000 in the same period last year.
The company finished 2025 with 7.00 million pay TV subscribers, including 5.02 million Dish TV subscribers and 1.98 million Sling TV subscribers. The company lost 636,000 Dish TV subscribers in all of 2025, down from a loss of 785,000 in 2024. The company also posted a loss of 167,000 Sling TV subscribers in 2025, a swing from a gain of 37,000 in 2024.
The decline in Dish TV’s net subscriber losses “resulted primarily from a lower Dish TV sluggish rate, which was partially offset by lower total new subscriber activations for Dish TV,” EchoStar said in a regulatory filing. “The change in Sling TV net subscribers was primarily related to lower Sling TV subscriber counts, which was partially offset by lower Sling TV subscriber counts in 2025 due to our focus on acquiring higher quality subscribers.” The filing added: “We continue to face increasing competition, including competition from other providers of video on demand and live OTT services, many of whom offer our content and deliver football and other seasonal sports programming directly to subscribers on a selective basis. For example, in August 2025, the ESPN Unlimited and Fox One sports packages were launched.”
The number of subscribers to retail wireless services decreased by about 9,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter, compared to an increase of 90,000 subscribers in the same period last year. The company ended 2025 with 7.51 million retail wireless subscribers. The number of broadband subscribers decreased by about 44,000 in the fourth quarter, compared to a decrease of 59,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024. The company ended the quarter with about 739,000 broadband subscribers.
The company’s fourth-quarter loss was $1.2 billion compared to last year’s profit of $335 million, as revenue fell from $4.0 billion to $3.8 billion. Operating income before depreciation and amortization was $397 million in the same period last year, but swung to a loss of $567 million in the latest quarter.
EchoStar’s 2025 loss widened to $14.50 billion from $119.55 million in the same period last year, “primarily due to non-cash asset impairments and other expenses totaling approximately $17.63 billion.” Net loss in 2024 was favorably impacted by non-cash gains totaling approximately $689 million related to the Company’s debt exchange offering and the resulting debt extinguishment.
