We all know that Rupert Murdoch is one gutsy guy. After all, this is a fellow who ballooned his father's mediocre newspaper business into an international media presence while still in his 20s. He survived the jackals of near bankruptcy in 1990. He took on the NCAAP over the "true" ownership of his Fox network in the mid-1990s.
We could go on. But the point is ... the man's no shrinking violet. And no fool either. But now, it appears, he's about to throw himself ... voluntarily ... into a lion's den, all in the name of shielding his cherished DirecTV subscribers from the growing allure of the cable voice/video/data triple-play package.
In short, Rupert Murdoch is talking, once again, of doing business with Charlie Ergen.
Now you guys know Charlie: The billionaire my-way-or-the-highway founder, owner and major-everything at EchoStar and its DISH network. Murdoch knows Charlie too. Every time he's sat down to do business with the man, he's come away a bit, shall we say, bloody.
Remember the planned merger between Murdoch's ASkyB and Ergen's company? When it became clear that Charlie wasn't going to cede any power to anyone, Murdoch backed out ... and was forced to leave a lot of money, and satellite assets, in Ergen's hands. Likewise, Ergen played a crafty game to delay Murdoch's long-sought control of DirecTV ... and in the process managed to force the News Corp. head honcho to pay more dearly than ever imagined for his DBS prize.
And now ... now Murdoch says he and Charlie might team up to create a $1 billion (according to BusinessWeek) wireless data and voice network that could give DBS the voice and data capabilities to match existing cable bundles? There's little dispute that the satellite industry needs to add high-speed data and voice services to its offerings in order to go head-to-head with the current round of cable technologies. (Unless the cable guys continue to shoot themselves in the feet, but that's another story.) And it's also likely that the current DBS solution of teaming up with telcos for voice and data will fade away as telcos begin to deliver their own video services. Likewise, the newly standardized WiMAX technologies appear to offer an ideal match for DBS services and we're firmly convinced that some form of hybrid satellite/terrestrial wireless platform will emerge as a key player in the not-too-distant future.
But Rupert doing business with Charlie?
As we said, one gutsy guy.
We could go on. But the point is ... the man's no shrinking violet. And no fool either. But now, it appears, he's about to throw himself ... voluntarily ... into a lion's den, all in the name of shielding his cherished DirecTV subscribers from the growing allure of the cable voice/video/data triple-play package.
In short, Rupert Murdoch is talking, once again, of doing business with Charlie Ergen.
Now you guys know Charlie: The billionaire my-way-or-the-highway founder, owner and major-everything at EchoStar and its DISH network. Murdoch knows Charlie too. Every time he's sat down to do business with the man, he's come away a bit, shall we say, bloody.
Remember the planned merger between Murdoch's ASkyB and Ergen's company? When it became clear that Charlie wasn't going to cede any power to anyone, Murdoch backed out ... and was forced to leave a lot of money, and satellite assets, in Ergen's hands. Likewise, Ergen played a crafty game to delay Murdoch's long-sought control of DirecTV ... and in the process managed to force the News Corp. head honcho to pay more dearly than ever imagined for his DBS prize.
And now ... now Murdoch says he and Charlie might team up to create a $1 billion (according to BusinessWeek) wireless data and voice network that could give DBS the voice and data capabilities to match existing cable bundles? There's little dispute that the satellite industry needs to add high-speed data and voice services to its offerings in order to go head-to-head with the current round of cable technologies. (Unless the cable guys continue to shoot themselves in the feet, but that's another story.) And it's also likely that the current DBS solution of teaming up with telcos for voice and data will fade away as telcos begin to deliver their own video services. Likewise, the newly standardized WiMAX technologies appear to offer an ideal match for DBS services and we're firmly convinced that some form of hybrid satellite/terrestrial wireless platform will emerge as a key player in the not-too-distant future.
But Rupert doing business with Charlie?
As we said, one gutsy guy.
