DBS provider EchoStar is gearing up to launch an online video network under its Dish Network brand name, and I understand that the launch could occur very soon. The service, the first of its kind for a DBS provider, will feature a broadband portal that offers not only content from the networks that make up the company’s standard satellite channels, but also exclusive online-only content.
Although the pricing and packaging of Dish’s online services are not yet clear, it appears that Dish will offer some kind of special discounts to its traditional multichannel video customers, while allowing non-subscribers to purchase or gain access to the same line-up of streamed and on-demand movies, TV shows and specialized niche and international content. The price breaks that Dish plans to give its existing multichannel video customers are clearly designed as retention tools to keep customers from churning off their regular video subscriptions.
Dish is clearly pushing the new technology envelope — VentureBeat this morning reported that Dish is also about to enter a pact with Google to use the search giant’s targeted advertising technology for television ads.
Clearly EchoStar is trying to survive in a two-way world where it is stuck with a one-way platform. Although the company is the preferred satellite provider for the nation’s top telco, AT&T, which is pushing Dish inside a triple-play package of services it calls HomeZone, Dish Network faces limited growth prospects as its cable competitors tilt the consumer sales proposition in favor of bundled voice, video and data services.
EchoStar and its main rival DirecTV toyed last year with buying broadband wireless spectrum to mount a two-way terrestrial broadband network that would, at last, give the DBS providers a true interactive platform. But, the prohibitive costs of the spectrum purchases combined with News Corp.’s disenchantment with the U.S. DBS business (News Corp. ultimately gave its DirecTV ownership stake to Liberty Media in a complex transation) scuttled that idea. Now, it seems, EchoStar will rely on the broadband Internet as its two-way pipeline into the home.
Cynthia Brumfield at 5:00 PM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
