Finally, a net increase in subs. Personally, I believe the greatest factor to Dish's continued loss, several quarters after the AT&T goodbye, was Dish stinky customer service. The attitude had been, "if you don't like it, fine, we will expedite closing your account." The huge attitude change from all levels of CSR was tremendous. Now, if one calls and expresses problems with service or upgrades, Dish really tries hard to solve or do what it can to keep you from leaving. That attitude also changed for the better for new subscribers who had concerns about their install.
A very close 2nd reason for the "large" number of net subs is Dish's much more effective and, not quite ubiquitous when compared with its competition, more frequent TV advertising that focused not just on price, but, for once, technology as a response to FiOS, Uverse, and Direc TV's trumpeting of their technology. All IMHO.
Of course it costs a lot of $$$ to get and keep customers, and that is something Wall Street really doesn't get. Remember, all of Direc TV's gains were at the cost of profit, as well as at Dish.
Lesson: it really isn't that difficult to get and keep subs: Have excellent customer service and make your TV ads count, even in this very crowded, noisy and competitive industry with FiOS, Cable, Uverse, and Direc TV just airing ads on just about every channel of every hour. Today, there was a FiOS ad and a TWC ad back to back. The difficulty is the higher expense of providing quality CS and not letting people leave the service, while trying to please Wall Street who have never liked one penny of those costs.
Keep things going in this direction, Charlie.
