Dish Network (Public, NASDAQ:DISH) had been expected to actually lose well over one hundred thousand customers for the fiscal quarter. In a surprise announcement, Dish Network reported that they had actually experienced a 26,000 rise in new subscribers. Due to the positive news for the satellite TV giant, the Dish Network stock offering rose almost two dollars to $20.40 per share before closing at $19.30 still almost a dollar higher, in Monday’s trading session.

On a conference call with analysts,

Dish Network’s Executive Vice President Tom Cullen postulated that the reasons for this would twofold, the federal mandate for everyone to switch to digital away from the old analog system, as well as the move to Nagravision’s set-top conditional access cards, which helps combat piracy of their satellite television services. Cullen lamented the difficulty in figuring out which of the two factors was more responsible for the success due to the timing and stating the difficulty in finding out who the set-top conditional access cards affected.

“Former pirates don’t identify themselves [when they begin to pay for the satellite television services they used to pirate],” Cullen said on the call.

Cullen further elaborated on a significant third factor (which IMO may be the real reason) as this was the first full quarter during which the company was running the $9.99 per month promotional offer. Cullen was quick to write it off as the primary factor though, as he mentioned most satellite customers are paying a higher rate. But one can’t be sure that the $9.99 number isn’t what got a customer to at least glance at switching to satellite television. Especially in this economy, it would be quick to turn the heads of someone paying five times that amount for cable television that offers the same number of channels. “It has been effective in ringing the phone,” Cullen said.