I was just reading through the transcript of the 4th quarter earnings call, and I don't see how the CordCutters news article would think that Dish would want to get back into the RSN business.
First, for Sling. Warren Schlichting said this when asked if the loss of subscribers on Sling is indicative of what will happen in the future:
" I think there were a lot of different influences in last half of 2019. So, I think extrapolating might be dangerous. We had a price increase. We shifted our channel lineup so that it doesn't include RSNs anymore. So, we like our position. We like our team bundle. We may not be everything to everybody, but we like where we are, and we're taking a disciplined approach. "
He seems to think that there will be no more RSN's added to the packages. Charlie Ergen was asked later on about Sinclair. Here is the question he was proposed:
Your satellite sub losses seemed pretty minimal, given the amount of programming in terms of regional sports networks that you dropped that we continue to calculate your saving over $400 million a year on not having those RSNs. You've lost at most $30 million to $40 million, it looks like of EBITDA, from the sub losses the last couple of quarters. Is there any reason to think that this wasn't a great decision? I mean, it just keeps looking more and more like not in the RSN business, unless they're on a tier. But a lot of flexibility of how you tier them going forward without minimums. Is there any other way to look at this, and does Retrans with Sinclair ultimately change this?
Then Ergen's response was:
"
...we still have some people that might want to watch regional sports. But it's a fraction of what it was last August when they came down. So, the programmers have a hard time understanding that once somebody leaves their network, there's no reason to put something back and tax the rest of people because the people who really watch the channel leave us because they have alternatives. So, the math was clear that the kind of offer we had from the Disney folks at the time that our contract was up was not even close to something that made sense for us. A lot of times in business, it's really easy decisions, and some you got to think about. But this was an easy one, and that's where we are today. And obviously, Sinclair now owns it. We've had a great relationship with Sinclair for a long period of time. But whether you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again remains an open question."
It doesn't sound good going forward unless the RSN's are on a tier. And given how desperate Altitude was this past year when Direct, Dish, and Comcast dropped it to get back and Altitude didn't take a higher tier placement, I don't see any of the others doing it.
Here is the full transcript if you want to read it:
DISH Network Corp (DISH) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript | The Motley Fool