Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Dish Network Corp., the nation's second-largest satellite-television provider, reported a 54 percent drop in third-quarter profit on subscriber losses and an investment writedown. The shares fell 15 percent.

Net income declined to $91.9 million, or 20 cents a share, from $199.7 million, or 44 cents, a year earlier, Englewood, Colorado-based Dish said today in a filing. Sales climbed 5.1 percent to $2.94 billion.

Dish lost 10,000 customers in the quarter, leaving it with 13.8 million. Increased competition from cable and phone companies may force the company to spend more on marketing and lure customers away, Dish said in the statement. Dish launched a new satellite in July to increase high-definition capacity to 100 channels from 45 by the end of the year.

``Waiting for a turnaround at Dish Network has the flavor of waiting for Godot,'' Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, said in a report today. ``Things go downhill from here.''

Dish fell $2.28 to $13.24 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have lost 54 percent this year.

In January, the company spun off its technology and equipment business EchoStar Corp. to focus on pay-TV. EchoStar declined 35 cents to $18.05.

Dish's U.S. customer churn, the percentage of subscribers who cancel service each month, widened to 2.02 percent from 1.94 percent last year. That's the worst ever for a U.S. direct- broadcast satellite operator, according to Moffett. He maintained his ``market perform'' rating on the shares.

AT&T Loss

AT&T Inc. replaced Dish with larger rival DirecTV Group Inc. in September to deliver programming for some of its bundles of TV, Internet and voice service. That arrangement takes effect in February. DirecTV said on Nov. 6 that its U.S. TV subscribers rose 156,000 to 17.3 million in the third quarter.

Dish said it may not be able to replace the lost AT&T business, which could hurt subscriber additions and increase churn. About 1 million current subscribers were acquired through the AT&T partnership, the company said.

Dish also wrote down the value of negotiable and non- negotiable investment securities by $156 million.

EchoStar's net loss widened to $307.9 million, or $3.43 a share, from $6.7 million, or 7 cents, a year earlier, the Englewood-based company said in a separate filing today.

The company said it depends on Dish ``for substantially all'' of its revenue. EchoStar said it may be required to write down as much as $300 million due to unused satellite capacity and a lack of long-term contracts.

To contact the reporter on this story: Philipp Schlaeger in New York at pschlaeger@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 10, 2008 16:23 EST