DirecTV emerged Tuesday as one of the biggest winners of last summer’s carriage meltdown between Time Warner Cable and CBS — adding 139,000 new subscribers in the third quarter.
The additions blew the doors off the 70,000 forecast from Wall Street and was the biggest jump in subscribers since 2011.
However, unexpected weakness in Latin America, which DirecTV had pegged as its hottest territory, spooked investors who sent shares down 1.3 percent in heavy trading.
DirecTV stock closed down 1.3 percent Tuesday to $63.53.
“Don’t expect them to keep up these numbers in the US,” Vijay Jayant, an analyst at ISI Media, told The Post, referring to the 1239,000 boost. “They benefited from the CBS-Time Warner Cable dispute.”
DirecTV CEO Mike White, who backs distributors in fights with programmers looking for fee increases, played down the impact of the TWC-CBS dispute, telling analysts he didn’t like to take advantage.
“I don’t think it’s in any distributor’s interests to do so,” White said. “I just don’t think it’s smart. What goes around comes around in these programming disputes.”
White said retransmission fees to broadcast stations are up 50 percent this year, something that has led DirecTV to look at distributing signals via antennas.
A 6 percent increase in the average revenue per customer, to $102.37, failed to dint enthusiasm for the service.
Revenue rose 6 percent to $7.9 billion in the third quarter.
Profit rose 24 percent to $699 million, or $1.28 per share. Analysts were looking for per-share profit of $1.
TWC, Comcast and Charter, all reported declines in video subscriptions.
Separately, White, gave no hint of how talks are going with the NFL over the firm’s desire to keep its exclusive Sunday Ticket package.
The sports package is viewed as one of the company’s best marketing weapons.