Organization and Business Activities

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2016

Organization and Business Activities

Organization and Business Activities

1.Organization and Business Activities

Principal Business

DISH DBS Corporation (which together with its subsidiaries is referred to as “DISH DBS,” the “Company,” “we,” “us” and/or “our” unless otherwise required by the context) is a holding company and an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation (“DISH Network”).  DISH DBS was formed under Colorado law in January 1996 and its common stock is held by DISH Orbital Corporation (“DOC”), a direct subsidiary of DISH Network.  We offer pay-TV services under the DISH® brand and the Sling® brand (collectively “Pay-TV” services).  The DISH branded pay-TV service consists of, among other things, Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) licenses authorizing us to use direct broadcast satellite (“DBS”) and Fixed Satellite Service (“FSS”) spectrum, our owned and leased satellites, receiver systems, third-party broadcast operations, customer service facilities, a leased fiber optic network, in-home service and call center operations, and certain other assets utilized in our operations.  The Sling branded pay-TV services consist of, among other things, live, linear streaming over-the-top (“OTT”) Internet-based domestic, international and Latino video programming services (“Sling TV”).  The Sling International video programming service (formerly known as DishWorld) was launched prior to 2015, which historically represented a small percentage of our Pay-TV subscribers.  During February and June 2015, we launched our Sling domestic and Sling Latino services, respectively.  In addition to these Sling TV services that may only be streamed on one device at a time (single-stream services), on April 13, 2016, we launched a live beta multi-stream Sling domestic service, which includes, among other things, the ability to stream on up to three devices simultaneously.  During June 2016, our multi-stream Sling domestic service transitioned from its introductory beta period and has been re-branded as Sling Blue.  Meanwhile, we re-branded our single stream Sling domestic service as Sling Orange.  All Sling TV subscribers are included in our Pay-TV subscriber count.  As of June 30, 2016, we had 13.593 million Pay-TV subscribers in the United States.