Joe Clayton, the president and CEO of Douglas County-based satellite TV company Dish Network Corp., retires at the end of March, and will also leave the Dish's board of directors. Dish Network, founder and chairman Charlie Ergen will be the returning CEO.
"Over the last four years, Joe's leadership has been instrumental to Dish as we have worked to engineer a fundamental transformation of our business," Ergen.
Wall Street Journal reporter, Shalini Ramachandran, wrote, "Mr. Ergen, the company’s mercurial, 61-year-old founder, stepped away from the CEO role nearly four years ago. As chairman he helped game out Dish’s major strategic moves, including investments to enter the wireless business and a recent plunge into streaming TV.
Now, as he assumes day-to-day control once again, Mr. Ergen faces the challenge of capitalizing on those bold bets by finding revenue growth that can counterbalance stagnation in Dish’s core pay-TV business. Dish reported Monday that it lost 79,000 subscribers last year, with 63,000 shed in the fourth quarter as it battled major TV programmers in carriage fee disputes.
By some measures, the U.S. wireless industry is already mature: The number of U.S. wireless subscriber connections, including cellphones and tablets, amounts to more than the entire U.S. population, according to CTIA, the wireless industry trade association.
But in an interview, Mr. Ergen said he views the industry as “relatively in its infancy” and sees a world of wireless-enabled devices beyond tablets and smartphones, from refrigerators to cars to smartwatches that will “lead to tremendous growth.”"