I'm calling $30 vs an average > $60 cable/sat bill significant. I cut the cord cause we were watching sho/hbo/espn 90% of the time and paying $120/month for the access. The value proposition wasn't there. $120 / month buys a lot of blu rays. I'd pay $30 for over the top espn. I won't pay > $60 for espn + 80 extra channels of honey boo boo caliber entertainment.
Dish's Over The Top Video Service Could Cost $20-$30
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I'm calling $30 vs an average > $60 cable/sat bill significant. I cut the cord cause we were watching sho/hbo/espn 90% of the time and paying $120/month for the access. The value proposition wasn't there. $120 / month buys a lot of blu rays. I'd pay $30 for over the top espn. I won't pay > $60 for espn + 80 extra channels of honey boo boo caliber entertainment.
It means a new online only service... DISH without a DISH.
That's the significance of this deal. Cable/Dish/Direct losing customers with no end in sight while turning into fee junkies to float a broken business model. Charlie beat netflix/amazon to the punch of over the top content distribution with the crown jewel (ESPN). That's the new business model and Charlie popped it's cherry.
Good article, thanks for sharing. Glad Charlie is doing this. If pay TV is going to be viable in the future, IP delivery has GOT to happen and at a reasonable cost
- Nov 29, 2003
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Has someone else said in this thread, this will not happen, cable companies will put hard cap limits in place to stop this, there is no way they are going to let competitors to use their broadband for TV service.
In my area Comcast is about to go to hard caps, for Performance and Blast 300 GBs, ( you go over $10 per every 50GBs) Extreme 105 600GBs, I upgraded to extreme because I am always going over 300GBs a month, watch a lot of Netflix, watch all new movies on Vudu, 2 kids, etc, I can just wonder how many GBs a internet service will eat up.
In my area Comcast is about to go to hard caps, for Performance and Blast 300 GBs, ( you go over $10 per every 50GBs) Extreme 105 600GBs, I upgraded to extreme because I am always going over 300GBs a month, watch a lot of Netflix, watch all new movies on Vudu, 2 kids, etc, I can just wonder how many GBs a internet service will eat up.
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Don't forget that Charlie is sitting on a ton of wireless spectrum.If they partner up or build an LTE network,they won't need anyone to provide the streaming.
Actually, I think the problem is that the amount of content available for a service is limited, and that is what is driving down the fictional price being mentioned.
You have to at least give Charlie credit on being a visionary,he knew that the future was mobile tv with minimal equipment involved to receive it.Again I say this has the potential to be a great platform,hopefully they don't screw it up.
Screw it up? You mean like Blockbuster?
Not the first thought that came to mind,more like Tivo,Voom.
Isn't this what Dish has always mentioned? Set-up a nation-wide LTE network to compete with the wireline services? As long as the prices and caps are competitive, and not like sat internet, then he has a chance to succeed. If Dish becomes like ATT and Verizon, with numerous restrictions, then forget about it.
Competition is good. But competition is better if net neutrality is enforced.
If Dish were able to "fill the gap" between broadcast and netflix, it would be a valuable internet service. Many do not really need to see the live TV, but want to see the programming before Netflix airings. This plus access to live sports could make a valuable service to those that want to semi cut the cord.
Tivo ,Voom ,Blockbuster, Great three examples of wasted opportunities that Charlie has squandered. I only hope that he doesn't waste his opportunity with all that spectrum to do some thing truly cutting edge.
Doesn't Dish have the best receiver in the US?
My understanding is that Voom was about as guilty of issues as Dish may have been.
Blockbuster had limited rights to any media. All they had were discs and physical media is dying off. Ergen was able to buy the name and remaining assets for a song.
Sure, after they stole Tivo's technology. Since Dish is bigger and has more money to work with, their dvr's have become some of, if not, the best out there.
Dish signed the ridiculous contract.
Blockbuster could have been re-vitalized. The disc-by-mail service never had the selection, the amount of distribution centers or the speed of Netflix. Their stores had as much space reserved for selling useless junk and used discs as they did for rentals. I don't know about you, but I didn't go to Blockbuster to buy used movies or action figures or magazines. I went there to rent movies and they had cut back on their selection immensely after Dish bought them. The only money that was invested in the stores were the Dish Hopper systems that were installed and new racks that were shorter and didn't hold as many discs.
I go to a local Family Video that is only a mile away from the Blockbuster store I went to. It is always busy and when you walk in, you can tell that the business is renting movies. They are focused on that and don't let selling extras interfere with that. As a result they are pretty successful and growing.
If DVDs are dying, then why am I still getting them from Netflix? Are you trying to tell us Netflix is losing money? Last I checked, they were doing pretty well. My BB@home DVDs by mail service was truly awful; I was lucky to get one OLD disk/month. Dish invested nothing so far as I can tell, beyond their initial $320B. They bought no recent disks, and never went significantly into streaming either, except to Dish receivers.
I'm with Mike. This was a jaw-dropping missed opportunity. They had a chance to build a Netflix-like service and do quit well. They invented BB@home just as Netflix stumbled. But due to abject lack of investment, they just finished running the service into the ground. Sure, their fall-back position was just to buy the name and liquidate. But their initial press release make it look like they really intended to make a run at the Netflix business.
I'm with Mike. This was a jaw-dropping missed opportunity. They had a chance to build a Netflix-like service and do quit well. They invented BB@home just as Netflix stumbled. But due to abject lack of investment, they just finished running the service into the ground. Sure, their fall-back position was just to buy the name and liquidate. But their initial press release make it look like they really intended to make a run at the Netflix business.
So then it can't be considered a bust.
But it was stated that it was Dish that squandered the deal, but how is signing a long contract squandering? It sounded like Voom couldn't produce what they promised.
And somehow this was supposed to be made magically better by Dish?
The brick and mortar disc store system was collapsing, hence Blockbuster going under. You seem to be thinking that Dish could have saved the entire industry.
But Blockbuster didn't have streaming rights to the media... only hard copies. There was a streaming system, but that was pay VOD. If Dish wanted to invent a new streaming Netflix, they didn't need to touch Blockbuster at all. All they had was the mail order portion of the system, which is more expensive to maintain and run.
This is flat out false. Netflix pays a fortune to have streaming media rights. Blockbuster had virtually no streaming media rights. The only media you can stream with BB@home are movies like Epix, MGM, etc. Nothing that can be streamed came from the BB acquistion.
Netflix didn't stumble... people overreacted. The exact same paylines exist today and Netflix is doing just fine.
You mean hundreds of millions of dollars to obtain streaming rights that they could have purchased without even buying BB in the first place?
It was in the ground... bankrupted already... would have closed earlier.
Not really. We read way too much into what they stated.
The reality is that what BB offered to Dish was no where near what was needed to create a Netflix competition. Netflix is a lot about streaming, BB had none. All BB had were discs (which are actually worth something and Dish probably got more out of selling the catalog than would have gotten trying to push the dead mule past the finish line). Dish was letting subs get a disc for nothing at all, but probably ran the numbers and figured that it wasn't cost effective and if they charged for the service, people wouldn't sign up for it.
Well if you consider criminal activity a success, then that's on you.
Because it's obvious that Dish didn't fully investigate the claim's made by VOOM. If they did, then they would have been suspicious of those claims.
No magic needed. Just invest in more and greater variety of product, build out more distribution centers and streamline mailing operations. Of course this takes spending money. Something Dish really wasn't interested in.
Nobody was asking Dish to save an entire industry. Just save Blockbuster, in one form or another. But looking at successful b&m operations (which you curiously didn't quote me on), their business model was pathetic. Dish could have easily gotten 5+ years more life out of the b&m operation.
The claim on TIVO was that Dish squandered a chance. That they have the best DVRs indicates the chance was not squandered.
In that case, I'd say Dish Paul Wight'd with Voom, not that they squandered in dealing with Voom.
Dish could have "easily gotten" 5 and more years out of the stores from Blockbuster. I'll have to take your word for it. I haven't gone through all of the financials as clearly you have to be able to make such a positive and overwhelmingly confident statement
