UPDATE 1-EchoStar quarterly profit rises
(Adds details of results, analysts estimates)
NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) - EchoStar Communications Corp (DISH.O), parent of the Dish Network Satellite Television service, said on Thursday its quarterly profit rose as it signed up more new customers.
The No. 2 U.S. satellite TV company behind DirecTV Group Inc DTV.N, which also competes with cable and phone company TV providers, said net income rose to $224.2 million, or 50 cents a share, from $168.8 million, or 38 cents a share a year ago.
Revenue for the second quarter rose to $2.76 billion from $2.47 billion.
Analysts expected a profit of 50 cents a share on revenue of $2.8 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
Gross subscriber additions were 850,000, up 26,000 from the period the prior year, it said, citing the benefit of high-definition programming. It added 170,000 net new subscribers in the period, and ended with a total of 13.59 million, up from about 12.46 million a year earlier.
EchoStar said average monthly revenue per user rose 5 percent to $66.06, reflecting price increases and fees for services like popular programming packages, digital video recorders and high-definition programming.
Earlier Thursday, DirecTV said its quarterly profit fell alongside higher costs related to its premium services. It also said its board board authorized the repurchase of up to $1 billion in shares.
Meanwhile, addressing its dispute with TiVo Inc. over digital video recorders, EchoStar said that late last month the Patent and Trademark Office issued a "final office action" rejecting as invalid all of the hardware claims that TiVo asserted against EchoStar.
However, the office did not reject two software claims that TiVo asserted against EchoStar during a trial over the dispute. The jury had found the EchoStar infringed on those claims. (Reporting by Paul Thomasch)
