Sales 2023: $ 11.571 billion (€ 10.700 billion)

Overview

Echostar/DISH CEO Charles Ergen: "Our journey began with a bold idea: to bring television to rural America." Ergen initially founded a satellite television equipment distributor under the name EchoStar Communications in 1980. After launching his first own direct broadcast satellite Echostar I, the DISH channel was added as a customer brand, as a subscription television service. In 2008, DISH became independent and spun off. In 2023, Charles Ergen (71) completed a remerger his two companies, which are now called Echostar again.

To classify the IfM ranking, we use the revenue of the pay-TV business division.

General Information

Headquarters
9601 South Meridan Blvd. 
Englewood, CO 80120
USA
Telephone: 001 303 723 1000
Internet: ir.dish.com

industry: Satellite TV
legal form: stock corporation
fiscal year: 01.01. – 31.12.
founding year: 1980 (Echosphere)

Basic economic data (in US$ million)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Revenue (from 2021 of the “Pay-TV” division)	11.571	12.505	12.929	15.493	12.808	13.621
Profit (operating income, from 2021 the “Pay-TV” division)	2.700	2.934	3.046	2.583	1.400	1.575
Share price (from 2023 of Echostar, in US$$, year-end)	16,57	14,04	32,44	32,34	35,88	28,28
Employees (from 2023 by Echostar)	15.300	14.200	14.500	13.500	16.000	16.000

Executives and Directors

Management:

• Charles W. Ergen, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board
• James DeFranco, Co-founder, Executive Vice President and Director
• W. Erik Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer
• John Swieringa, President and COO, DISH Wireless
• Amir Ahmed, Executive Vice President, DISH TV
• Jeffrey Blum, Executive Vice President, External and Legislative Affairs
• Stephen Bye, Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer
• Tom Cullen, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development
• Brandon Ehrhart, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Wireless, and Corporate Secretary
• Narayan Iyengar, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer
• Timothy A. Messner, Executive Vice President and General Counsel
• Dave Mayo, Executive Vice President, Network Development
• Jeffrey L. McSchooler, Executive Vice President, Wireless Operations
• Bryan Neylon, Executive Vice President, Group President, DISH TV
• Paul W. Orban, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
• Marc Rouanne, Executive Vice President, Chief Network Officer
• Gary Schanman, Executive Vice President and Group President, SLING TV
• Kathy Schneider, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience Operations
• David A. Scott, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Office
• Stephen Stokols, Executive Vice President, Retail Wireless
• Atilla Tinic, Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer

Supervisory Board:

• Kathleen Q. Abernathy
• George R. Brokaw
• W. Eric Carlson
• James DeFranco
• Charles W. Ergen, Chairman
• Candy Ergen
• Charles M. Lillis, Wells Fargo
• Tom A. Ortolf
• Joseph T. Proietti

History

Charles W. Ergen laid the foundation for EchoStar Communications in 1980. Together with his future wife, Candy, and Jim DeFranco, he initially founded Echosphere as a satellite equipment provider. With little money, they drove around the Denver metropolitan area, selling satellite dishes from the back of their van. They also invested $60,000 to purchase two C-band antennas for rural Colorado.

In 1992, the company was granted a DBS license (direct broadcast satellite). From then on, Ergen focused all his efforts on the emerging satellite market, competing with the all-powerful cable industry. In 1995, Echosphere was renamed EchoStar Communications, and in 1996, the DBS offering was successfully launched under the DISH (Digital Sky Highway) brand. EchoStar went public in 1997. Over the next ten years, DISH grew its customer base to over 13 million subscribers.

In 2000, EchoStar appeared to be on its way to becoming a satellite television monopoly in the United States when it considered a merger with its competitor DirecTV. DirecTV, now part of AT&T, was then part of Hughes Electronic, founded by legendary industrialist and aviation enthusiast Howard Hughes. However, the U.S. regulatory authority (FCC) blocked the merger, which would have resulted in 91 percent market dominance in the satellite television sector. Due to a break-up payment to Hughes Electronics, the failed merger cost EchoStar $600 million.

A key factor in Echostar's success was the partnership it formed in the summer of 2003 with the US telecom giant SBC (part of AT&T). The SBC-EchoStar deal was based on "bundling," a practice in which various services are combined into a single bill. With this project, SBC became the first major telecom carrier to sell television, telephone, and internet services in a single package. On December 7, 2007, EchoStar announced that it would spin off its technology and infrastructure assets into a separate company under the name EchoStar, after which the remainder of the company would be renamed DISH Network Corporation.

In 2007, as part of a partnership with Google, the online-tested "pay-per-click" advertising model was transferred to the TV market. Google now distributes approximately one-third of DISH's local advertising time. Since October 2007, DISH and Google have also been collaborating with the market research firm Nielsen, which further supplements and evaluates the data from the set-top boxes.

At the beginning of 2015, DISH launched Sling TV, one of the first over-the-top services (Internet TV; the user decides for himself what he wants to watch via streaming).

management

Founder Charles Ergen (born in 1953 into a family of Austrian immigrants), known for his eccentricity and impulsiveness, knows how to gamble: As a young man, he earned his money as a professional blackjack player in Las Vegas until one of the casinos banned him for illegal tricks. Today, he is a billionaire and notoriously stingy. The workaholic and passionate mountaineer shows up to business meetings in shirtsleeves and with a packed lunch. He only uses secondhand furniture in his office and doesn't fly first class. Rumor has it that he constantly instructs managers to take cheaper overnight flights and share hotel rooms on business trips—sometimes with him. In 2015, Ergen managed to reach number 77 among the richest Americans in the "Forbes 100" with a fortune of $13 billion. In 2021, he still ranks 241st among the "Richest in the World" with $9.6 billion.

However, DISH is no paradise for ordinary employees. The company has been named "America's Worst Company to Work For" several times by American watchdogs. The industry publication The Hollywood Reporter called Ergen "Hollywood's Most Hated Man" – partly because he never shies away from conflicts with the well-known cable channels. For example, DISH customers were temporarily denied access to series like "The Walking Dead" and "Breaking Bad" because Ergen couldn't reach an agreement with the broadcaster AMC over carriage fees.

Business segments

Under the name DISH, the Dish Network Corporation offers digital television content via satellite; the program offering includes the usual cable-based diversification into full-service programs, local stations, special interest, sports, news and Pay-per-view-channels.

In addition, the internet streaming service Sling TV, available in the US and Puerto Rico since January 2015, is DISH's response to the widespread practice of cord-cutting. Sling TV is primarily aimed at younger generations who have canceled their cable subscriptions or never signed a contract. Instead, they can stream around 20 channels in the basic package for $20 a month. DISH also acts as an internet service provider in 14 states in the western US, particularly in rural areas excluded from the cable network.

Current developments

In April 2020, the mega-merger between T-Mobile US and Sprint, the third and fourth largest wireless providers in the US (behind AT&T and Verizon), was officially approved. Both companies say the merger is necessary to build a nationwide 5G network and because Sprint cannot survive on its own. An alliance of 13 states plus the District of Columbia counters that market consolidation would reduce competition and likely increase prices for consumers. The US Telecommunications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice have nevertheless given their approval, subject to conditions. This is where Charles Ergen and the Dish Network Corporation come in. To protect competition in the US wireless market, T-Mobile and Sprint must transfer their prepaid brand Boost and some of their radio frequencies to Dish.

At the beginning of July 2020, it was announced that DISH had completed the acquisition of Boost Mobile for $1.4 billion. Ergen commented: "This is not a pipe dream for us. We've wanted to enter the wireless business for the past 10 years. I've been working on it almost every day. Now the stars are aligned, and we know we can compete." Of course, it will be difficult as a new entrant in a market with three established, similarly sized competitors. "There's a chance we could fail; it's a tough business out there," Ergen said. "But Dish is also a tough company."

DISH will take over more than nine million Boost Mobile customers, 500 employees, 7,500 Sprint stores, and approximately 20,000 cell towers. The plan is to keep Boost as a prepaid brand while simultaneously launching a postpaid business—postpaid customers are generally more profitable for wireless companies. After that, DISH would begin building its own 5G network city by city. By 2022, the company plans to have 10,000 subscribers in more than 100 cities on its network. Ergen said there is no alternative to building its own 5G network. If that doesn't happen, it would face heavy fines from the FCC. "If we don't build it, it would be financial suicide." At the same time, this would give DISH a new foothold. Important, since, as the company says, its core satellite TV business will likely only remain profitable for another generation.