— DIRECTV U.S. Adds 505,000 Net Subscribers

First Quarter Review

News Corporation completed its acquisition of 34 percent of Hughes common stock last December.

“With our experience in the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean, we are continuing to provide the highest quality and attractive content for the Japanese market,” said Gareth Chang, chairman of DIRECTV Japan.

DIRECTV Japan, which began service with 63 channels, expanded to 88 channels in April.

Carey concluded, "We are moving quickly to enhance our service and in the coming months we will have launched three new satellites that will greatly expand our capacity and enable us to introduce an array of compelling new programming services, including additional local channels in high-definition format. We will roll out our new interactive digital video recorder in the summer, followed shortly thereafter by the launch of a suite of enhanced new services for our exclusive NFL SUNDAY TICKET(TM) package. Additionally, around the end of the year we will introduce the DIRECTV Home Media Center. We believe that the enhancements we are making to our service, coupled with our ongoing efforts to further improve DIRECTV’s industry-leading customer service, will bring us closer to our goal of making DIRECTV the best television experience in the world."

"The strong demand for DIRECTV U.S.’ service throughout the country continued in the first quarter leading to first quarter records for both gross and net subscriber additions of 1.14 million and 505 thousand, respectively," said Chase Carey, president and CEO of The DIRECTV Group, Inc. "In addition, DIRECTV U.S.’ 35% revenue growth and 48% increase in operating profit before depreciation and amortization demonstrate that we’re beginning to see the benefits from our improved operating performance including efficiencies gained in the former NRTC territories. Although these results reflect steady progress in key operating areas such as churn, upgrade and retention marketing and subscriber acquisition costs, we still have much to accomplish as we continue to drive profitable growth."

“I’m delighted to announce the addition of Peter to the DIRECTV team,” said Stern. “His knowledge of the satellite communications industry will be an enormous asset in leading DIRECTV’s customer satisfaction division and taking the award-winning standards the company has established over the last two years to an even higher level.”

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