Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar satellite operation, despite losing subscribers on its Hughes Network Systems subsidiary, seems committed to launching its own Low Earth Orbiting fleet of satellites. EchoStar Corp CEO Hamid Akhavan has spoken in the past that Direct-To-Device connectivity from satellite to consumers is a huge opportunity. Now, in releasing the company’s full-year results, he […]
ThinkAnalytics has announced that DISH Network, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar, has selected the Think360 content discovery platform, along with ThinkContentExplorer, to optimise its editorial operations, accelerate time to market, and boost viewer engagement in the US. By leveraging Think360’s advanced AI, intelligent search and a dataset enriched with ThinkAnalytics 40,000 metadata video tags, DISH will […]
Sling TV, the US streaming service and subsidiary of EchoStar, has rolled out an enhancement to its DVR Plus add-on: unlimited DVR storage for $5 per month. Effective immediately, Unlimited DVR will allow customers to record as much content as they want, with recordings saved for up to nine months. “With Unlimited DVR and our […]
DirecTV has acquired the majority ownership of Invidi Technologies, a specialist in providing addressable television advertising solutions that increase the value of advertising inventory for programmers and distributors by allowing marketers to target specific audiences on television without wasting ad impressions. “DirecTV has been a trailblazer in addressable TV for nearly 15 years. Our longstanding […]
The planned merger between two US pay-TV satellite broadcasters is definitely off – at least for the moment. A deadline set by DirecTV passed without fresh discussions or progress happening. The blame for the decision falls on Charlie Ergen’s Dish/EchoStar and its bond (debt) holders. Under the complex merger deal, which would have created the […]
EchoStar’s share price has plummeted 13 per cent as news emerged that TPG (the former Texas Pacific Group) has said that the acquisition by DirecTV of EchoStar’s pay-TV assets was at risk because of EchoStar/Dish bond-holders who were holding out over the terms of a debt exchange offer. There are multiple reports that Dish bondholders […]
It should not be forgotten in the acres of business news coverage over the DirecTV (and TPG) acquisition of DISH Network that in selling DISH, chairman Charlie Ergen is very much giving up his ‘baby’. When his EchoStar 1 satellite was launched on a Chinese Long March rocket in 1995 Ergen was in the launch […]
As heavily rumoured, DirecTV and EchoStar have entered into a definitive agreement under which DIRECTV will acquire EchoStar’s video distribution business DISH DBS, including DISH TV and Sling TV, through a debt exchange transaction. “DirecTV operates in a highly competitive video distribution industry,” said Bill Morrow, Chief Executive Officer, DirecTV. “With greater scale, we expect […]
The long-awaited merger between DirecTV and Dish Network appears imminent and could be announced as early as September 30th, according to a report in the WSJ. If an agreement is reached, the result would be the creation of the largest pay-TV operator in the US. Together, the pair would have some 20 million subscribers. The […]
EchoStar, the Charlie Ergen-backed business that owns the Dish US pay-TV operator, says that negotiations which have taken place over the past weeks with certain debt-holders and which would have led to a financial reconstruction have failed to reach agreement. The negotiations were primarily with members of a group represented by Milbank. Despite this setback, […]