The FCC has approved the transfer of control of Dish Network and its subsidiaries to EchoStar Corp. The FCC, and the bureaux under its supervision (the Office of Engineering & Technology, the Space Bureau, the Wireless Telecommunications) allowed the transfer of its broadcast and transmission licences. The FCC order includes those terrestrial licences for Dish’s […]
Charlie Ergen is in the process of – in effect – merging Dish Network with sister business EchoStar in a strategy to tap into EchoStar’s cash war chest and in order to further build out Dish’s near-national 5G cellular spectrum in the US. The problem, according to analysts at MoffettNathanson, is that the moves might […]
Following on from DISH Network’s miserable results on November 6th (and a 38 per cent crash in its already depressed share price to $3.44, a 25-year low) co-founder Charlie Ergen told analysts that the pay-TV broadcaster was failing fast. “Investors are starting to give up,” Ergen admitted. One immediate consequence is that DISH Network’s President […]
Bharti Airtel, the Indian telco, has announced that its video streaming service, Airtel Xstream Play, has crossed the five million paid subscriber mark and continues to be the fastest growing OTT aggregator in the country. Airtel Xstream Play offers a bouquet of OTT content aggregated on a single app. Customers have access to content from […]
Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network, despite currently suffering some 77 local channels being blacked out over carriage disputes, is putting its prices up by $5 per month. Penalties for not paying the monthly fee on time will also rise from a nominal $2 to a more aggressive $12 whenever a payment date is missed. Prices go […]
Charlie Ergen, who is chairman of both DISH Network and EchoStar, is reportedly looking to merge the two businesses. Both companies are said to have appointed advisors, according to Semafor who first reported the story. DISH Network looks after Ergen’s declining pay-TV business including its DISH Anywhere and Sling OTT services. DISH is also the […]
Charlie Ergen, the founder and billionaire owner of US pay-TV broadcaster Dish Network, has talked for a couple of years about the “inevitability” of merging with arch-rival DirecTV. Both are losing subscribers at a worrying rate, and common sense suggests that a merger is the only route to saving cash, exploiting synergies and reducing the […]
Pay-TV operator DISH Network has suffered a major fall in subscribers according to its Q1 financials. Dish TV and its OTT sister service Sling TV, lost an overall 552,000 subscribers during the first quarter of the year. The same period in 2022 saw losses of 462,000 net subscribers (and 268,000 in Q4/2022). The Charlie Ergen-backed […]
Barely two weeks ago on March 10th, Charlie Ergen’s DBS DISH Network lost a Utah jury verdict on a patent lawsuit with plaintiff ClearPlay. The verdict saw the Court award ClearPlay $469 million (€434m) in compensation. The action alleged that DISH’s ‘AutoHop/Hopper’ functions used ClearPlay’s patented skipping feature. ClearPlay’s technology allowed users to skip what […]
Charlie Ergen, co-founder of Dish and EchoStar, has something of a reputation as a poker player. Indeed, he was allegedly once banned from a casino at Lake Tahoe many years ago. A report from Tim Farrar of TMF Associates focuses on a filing by Globalstar which has notified the market that it had entered into […]