DirecTv satellite dishes aren't hitting Hughes's sales projections.

EL SEGUNDO - Satellite broadcast programmer DirecTv Inc. isn't going to turn a profit quite as quickly as it had hoped.

The company, a division of Hughes Electronics Corp., projected it would have 3 million domestic subscribers by year end.

To reach that goal, DirecTv estimated that each month it would have to sell between 200,000 and 300,000 of the 18-inch satellite dishes that TV viewers must install to receive DirecTv programming.

That level of monthly sales would need to be maintained from September through the end of the year. And the company figured it could accomplish that with a $199 rebate offer that slashed the price of the dish in half.

But after less than 150,000 of the dishes were sold in September, DirecTv was forced to cut back on its estimates.

At this point, the goal is to have between 2.3 million and 2.5 million subscribers nationwide by the end of the year, according to DirecTv spokesman Bob Marsocci.

The 3 million-subscriber milestone is a critical one for DirecTv because company officials and analysts agree the company needs that many to start turning a profit.

Hughes spent $750 million launching its DirecTv division in 1994 and untold millions operating it since then.

The Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) business is currently the only viable alternative to cable for the delivery of multiple TV channels and pay-per-view programming. DirecTv was the first DBS company in the market, but it now faces competition from start-up companies such as Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar Communications Corp. and PrimeStar Partners L.P., which is a joint venture between five of the nation's biggest cable TV operators.

DirecTv is strictly a programming provider, selling packages of up to 175 channels to subscribers who pay an annual fee. It relies on electronics equipment manufacturers such as RCA, Sony and Magnavox to build and distribute the dishes needed to receive its programming.

EchoStar, which both makes dishes and supplies programming, touched off a price war in August when it cut the cost of its dishes to $199. The dishes needed for DirecTv's system retail for $399.

To remain competitive, DirecTv on Labor Day began offering the $199 rebate to consumers who agreed to buy a one-year programming subscription, which retails for about $350, along with the $399 dish.

Installation of the dish costs consumers another $150 or so, meaning they pay a total of about $900 for the DirecTv hardware, installation and programming. That total cost drops to about $700 with the rebate.

Consumers have been cool to the offer so far. But the slower-than-expected sales apparently have not razed officials at DirecTv, who maintain the company will nonetheless cross the 3 million-subscriber barrier sometime in 1997.

"We already have over 2 million subscribers nationwide," Marsocci said. "We are now equal to the nation's seventh-largest multi-system cable operator, in terms of subscriber base."

DBS companies face an uphill struggle to wrest subscribers from better-established cable operators, both because of the large up-front investment required and a perceived reluctance by consumers to invest in satellite-dish technology that may be obsolete in the near future.

And cable operators are not the only competitors with which DBS companies must contend.

Telephone companies are preparing to launch ground-based digital TV services to compete with DBS and cable starting next year, and a new generation of digital television sets expected to arrive by the end of the decade will bring consumers dozens of new digital channels for free over-the-broadcast television spectrum. (Of course, consumers would first have to buy the digital sets.)

Nonetheless, telecommunications industry experts give companies like DirecTv high odds of success.

"My hunch is that consumers aren't thinking about future services very much," said Richard Worthington, associate director of the Center for Telecommunications Management at the USC School of Business Administration. "Suppliers are thinking about it, but consumers don't know the first thing about them."

The Carmel Group, a DBS appraisal and consulting firm based in Carmel, Calif., estimates there will be nearly 12 million DBS subscribers nationwide (on all systems) by the year 2000. Cable systems currently have about 60 million subscribers in the United States.

Critics of DBS systems point out that they don't transmit signals from local broadcast channels. They also don't allow for the kind of two-way communications expected to become available on cable systems in the near future, as cable operators lay more and more fiber optic cables that will allow consumers to access the Internet and various other services through their television sets.

Michael Alpert, president of Washington, D.C.-based communications consulting firm Alpert & Associates, countered that technology already exists to bring. local broadcast signals into the DBS package, as well as two-way communications.

Cable companies, meanwhile, are so highly leveraged and have such low profit margins that it will be many years before they are able to build the fiber-optic infrastructure needed for true cable interactivity, he said.

But here in L.A. County, cable operators say they are ready to begin two-way services like telephone communications and high-speed Internet access starting early next year.

"The primary advantage that cable has over DBS is its broadband networking capabilities, which means we will be able to provide services other than broadcast video," said Susan Ritchie, a spokewoman in the El Segundo office of Continental Cablevision Inc.