It’s a rough year to be a Dish subscriber: networks just keep falling out of the lineup as the satellite TV company ends up in contract disputes with channel after channel. The latest argument has Fox News and Fox Business blacked out on Dish, and the fight looks like it’s just getting started. [More]
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Netflix Now Available On Dish Subscribers’ Boxes
By 12.17.14
Netflix and traditional pay TV companies are ever at odds in the public eye. But behind the scenes, it seems they are getting ever more cooperative: as of today, Dish subscribers now have access to Netflix on their set-top boxes. [More]
Dish Deal With CBS Effectively Makes Ad-Skipping DVR Pointless
By 12.9.14
Yes, after a brief blackout over the weekend, Dish Network and CBS reached a deal that will stop all the nasty back-and-forth talk between the two… at least until the next time. But as part of this arrangement, Dish subscribers who enjoy their ad-skipping AutoHop DVR service will find it significantly less useful. [More]
New Coalition Steps Up To Fight “Mega Comcast” Merger As FCC Restarts Review Clock
By 12.3.14
It’s the plot of a certain kind of action movie or video game that we’ve all seen and played a thousand times: the big bad robot/alien/lizard comes crashing into town and the only thing that will stop it is when an unlikely band of allies group up and save the world. If politics and business are a game, as so many participants seem to think, then now they are apparently one of that genre, as an unlikely band of allies is now grouping together under one banner to fight the Comcast/Time Warner Cable mega-merger. [More]
Dish Customers Get Cartoon Network, CNN Back After Month-Long Blackout
By 11.21.14
Just hours after averting (for now) a blackout of CBS-owned stations in 14 markets, Dish Network has made nice with another of its foes in the broadcasting world, ending the month-long blackout of Turner channels like CNN, HLN, and the Cartoon Network. [More]
CBS Blackout Still Looms For Dish Customers
By 11.20.14
UPDATE: A blackout has been averted for the time-being, with CBS and Dish agreeing at the 11th hour to continue negotiating. So football fans with Dish will at least get through this weekend without having to worry about missing games on CBS. [More]
CNN Parent Company Not Pleased With Dish’s Veiled Threats To Permanently Pull Channels
By 11.5.14
A few weeks back, Dish and Turner Broadcasting — parent company to CNN, HLN, Cartoon Network and others — couldn’t reach a deal on a new contract, meaning millions of Dish subscribers haven’t had access to these channels since. And last night, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen hinted that maybe it’s time for CNN and other cable mainstays to rethink how important they are. [More]
T-Mobile CEO “Sick And Tired” Of Takeover Talk
By 10.7.14
T-Mobile has long been considered a juicy, low-hanging magenta fruit that some bigger company could pick off and devour. But after years of being wooed by suitors from the Death Star, Japan, and France, T-Mobile CEO John Legere says it’s time to stop talking about his company being acquired by someone else. [More]
Dish & T-Mobile Spotted Canoodling In Corner Of Merger Meat Market
By 9.8.14
Maybe Dish and T-Mobile are just friends who had a little too much to drink one night. Maybe they were commiserating how they were still single while each of their failed merger partners are making plans for a future of little satellite-equipped Death Stars. Regardless of how they got to this place, Dish and T-Mobile are apparently in those early, giddy, everything’s rosy days of thinking about getting their merger on. [More]
Dish Locks Down More Content For Its Standalone Internet TV Service, But Is It Enough?
By 8.5.14
The last we heard about Dish Network’s standalone Internet TV service was that it was expected to launch in late summer. We’re officially in late summer, but there have been few indications that the service is going live any time soon. Now comes news that Dish has locked down some new content partners, but does it have enough to win over cord-cutters? [More]
Appeals Court Disregards Aereo Ruling, Won’t Shut Down Dish’s Streaming Service
By 7.15.14
Last week, we told you about an attempt by broadcasters — still bloody from their Supreme Court gutting of Aereo — to use the ruling in that case to shut down Dish’s Dish Anywhere streaming service. But yesterday, a federal appeals court said Dish Anywhere could continue pending the outcome of a trial. [More]
Dish Network’s Internet TV Service Could Be Available This Summer
By 4.23.14
While a number of companies have been contemplating the launch of an Internet-only pay-TV service, it looks like Dish may be the first U.S. provider to do so, as reports say the satellite company is looking to start offering this stand-alone service as soon as this coming summer. [More]
Dish To Refund $2 Million To Washington State Customers Over Sketchy Surcharge
By 4.16.14
In May 2012, Dish customers in Washington state began seeing an additional item on their bills — a mysterious “Washington Surcharge” of between $1.00 and $1.09 a month. The satellite provider stopped this surcharge later that year after the state’s attorney general’s office began investigating, and yesterday it agreed to issue a full refund to customers who’d been hit with the questionable fee. [More]
Dish CEO: If Comcast Can Buy TWC, Then We Can Merge With DirecTV
By 2.24.14
As we mentioned last week, if regulators approve the pending marriage of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, it would put pressure on the nation’s two largest satellite operators to combine in order to compete. And while Dish co-founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen isn’t talking about a tie-up with DirecTV just yet, he is pointing out that it would be hypocritical for the Comcast deal to be approved and a satellite merger to be denied. [More]
Why DirecTV and Dish Customers Should Care About Time Warner Cable/Comcast Deal
By 2.21.14
While many cable subscribers around the country are dreading the impact that a merged Time Warner Cable and Comcast could have on pricing for TV and Internet service, some satellite customers have shrugged off the news. But a tie-up between the two largest terrestrial cable companies could have far-reaching consequences for all pay-TV subscribers. [More]
Does Dish Also Have Lust In Its Heart For T-Mobile?
By 12.20.13
Last week’s big news in the wireless world was a report that Sprint was making googoo eyes at T-Mobile and dreaming dreams of wedded bliss. But, as always seems to happen in great romantic comedies, there’s now rumors of a new suitor from the other side of town. [More]
SoftBank Says It, And Not Dish, Deserves The Final Rose From Bachelor Sprint
By 4.16.13
While it has looked for months like Sprint and Japanese telecom titan SoftBank only had eyes for each other and were mere months away from wedded bliss, that pesky Charlie Ergen at Dish decided to come on strong, making his own $25.5 billion case yesterday for why Sprint and his company should elope. Not wanting to be the one left jilted at the final rose ceremony, SoftBank is firing back. [More]
