Free Republic

Dish CEO Joe Clayton raised eyebrows yesterday when he said the satellite TV service is "open" to being purchased by another company. "We're open to all possible options," Clayton told Bloomberg News after being asked about possible merger plans. "We could be acquired or we could be the acquirer." Clayton, who was interviewed at the Consumer Electronics Show, did say the company would be "open" to those options after it finished 'building out' its wireless spectrum and entertainment businesses. There has been speculation that Dish might be interested in buying T-Mobile. Clayton, a long-time executive in the satellite and TV...

Anyone experiencing outage on their Dish Network?

Designed for camping in the great outdoors or entertaining guests while tailgating, Dish Network announced the release of the Tailgaiter, a mobile satellite television antenna that’s compatible with Dish Network service. Weighing in at 10 pounds, the satellite antenna is encased in a 10-sided plastic shell with a handle for lugging around the device. The shell is designed to protect the antenna in poor weather conditions and allows the dish to rotate within the casing to align with the satellite. The Tailgater portable antenna also requires a Model ViP 211k HD Solo receiver to pick up high definition stations. The...

The satellite-TV company will likely close a majority of the 1,751 stores currently operating in the U.S. Dish Network, which will soon become the official owner of the Blockbuster video-rental chain, filed documents with Bankruptcy Court Saturday stating that it intends to keep some 600 Blockbuster stores open after its purchase is finalized. Earlier this month, Dish won a bidding war for the struggling rental company with an offer of roughly $320 million. According to the Los Angeles Times, Blockbuster currently operates 1,751 stores in the U.S., which means that the new owners will likely be closing more than 1,000...

Washington, D.C. (December 5, 2010) -- Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen sometimes brags about his days as a Blackjack 'card counter' in the casinos of Las Vegas. In fact, the young Ergen was so good at skirting the Rules of the House that he was banned for life from playing in Sin City. As a reporter who has followed Ergen and Dish Network now for nearly two decades, I have to say that the wheeler-dealer still acts as if the rules don't always apply to him. Or at least his company does. Over the years, Dish has gotten entangled in...

Attention DISH NETWORK Customers! DISH NETWORK no longer carries the FOX Regional Sports Networks, FX, or National Geographic Channel. You could also lose FOX and MyNet starting 11/1.

Story Published: Aug 10, 2010 at 7:54 AM CDT Story Updated: Aug 10, 2010 at 1:12 PM CDT SNIPPET: "SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Viewers are calling the KY3 Newsroom and posting information on our KY3 Ozarks Today Facebook page about getting the wrong channels on Dish Network on Tuesday morning. Some of the channels are apparently in Chinese, Arabic and other languages." SNIPPET: "UPDATE On Tuesday, August 10, 2010 12:24 PM, KY3 received an official statement from Dish Network regarding the issue. “Starting at approximately 3:30 a.m. MDT, satellite uplink provider, EchoStar, experienced an equipment failure associated with a primary video...

I'm in the process of selecting a satellite TV provider since I'll be moving soon when I buy a house. I found an old FR thread from 2003 on the topic of Direct TV vs. Dish TV. The market has changed since then. I only have two TV locations. I don't need the premium channels, just the basics, especially Fox News. Any suggestions and information will be appreciated.

Anyone a Dish TV network customer? If so, can you tell me how many days does the basic Dish Network receiver guide display? I used to have a high end Hughes receiver with a 15+ day guide, but it burnt out recently, or got zapped in a power failure, and since DirecTV only uses their own brand recivers now, I ended up replacing my box with one of DirecTVs basic recievers, and quite frankly, it's been a big step down. The screen only shows 1.5 hrs on the screen at a time, and only shows 2 days worth of guide....

Dish Network Corp. said Wednesday it won a temporary stay of a potentially costly contempt order issued against it in a long-running patent lawsuit with TiVo Inc. The Englewood-based satellite broadcaster said a federal appeals court suspended a lower court’s contempt ruling that had levied $103 million in new damages against Dish Network and said it had 30 days to disable some functions of millions of digital video recorders used by its subscribers. “We are pleased that the Federal Appeals Court in Washington temporarily stayed the district court’s order in the Tivo litigation,” said Dish Network in a written statement....

No thanks to Comcast now charging a totally silly US$63 per month for their Extended Basic cable service, I am looking at switching to satellite TV. My configuration requirement is simple: a two-receiver setup where one receiver will have a built-in DVR, and one receiver will not need it (since it will be in the kitchen). I do not need HDTV support for now. I am down to two different plans: DirecTV's Choice Xtra package and Dish Network's Silver 200 package, using the configuration I mentioned above. I'd like to find out which is the better deal in terms of...

Is this a new channel on Dish TV with 24 hours a day of the Messiah?

I'm just trying to find answers......

OK - I'm about to call DishNetwork and give them a piece of my mind. However, I'm running out of pieces to give. I was flipping through my channel guide on DishNetwork and what did I find? An entire freakin' channel on 0bama. Channel 73 on DishNetwork is now OBAMA. Looks like all it is doing is playing over and over and over "Barack Obama's Plan for America".

Dish Network today announced that it will add 17 national HDTV channels on August 1, saying the additions will give it 100 national HD channels overall. The satcaster promised in January that it would offer 100 national HD channels by year's end. DIRECTV, Dish's top satellite rival, now offers around 95 national HD channels, but has promised to deliver up to 150 national HD channels by year's end. “In January, we promised our customers that DISH Network would boost our national HD channel lineup to 100 by year’s end. Today, we are proud to say that in less than one...

Not sure where this goes but has this happened to you. I have Dish Network and Tivo on a wireless network at the house so they update and download configurations and channel lineups I receive all the time. Last night while going to watch the debate, I tried to get Fox News (205). It had been removed from the channels I received for years. I had to go in an manually re-add the channel to watch Fox.

An East Texas judge has ordered the parent of DISH satellite television to stop selling and turn off about 4 million of its digital video recorders within 30 days. U.S. District Judge David Folsom also ordered DISH parent EchoStar Communications to pay almost $90 million in damages. The Thursday decision comes after a federal jury in Marshall in April determined that EchoStar willfully infringed on TiVo's "time-warp" patent. That applies to the way a DVR simultaneously records one program while playing back another.EchoStar is the country's second-largest satellite television provider with about 12.5 million subscribers.

Shares of America’s #2 satellite television provider, EchoStar Communications, have hit 17-month highs in recent days amid speculation that leading rival, DirecTV Group Inc., could try to purchase the company. Such a merger would likely face regulatory and antitrust hurdles, but many analysts believe that these problems would be relatively easy to overcome. After all, the combined entity could be a strong competitor in the triple play communications industry, now increasingly polarized between cable and telecom carriers. The decision to merge with DirecTV would rest solely with Charlie Ergen, EchoStar’s Chairman, CEO, and co-founder, who currently controls more than...

Excerpt - NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Satellite TV providers EchoStar Communications Corp. (DISH) and DirecTV Inc. (DTV) signed five-year distribution agreements with WildBlue Communications Inc., a satellite-broadband provider, to provide Internet access targeting rural consumers. ~ snip ~

TiVo Won http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2006/mft06051143.htm By Tim Beyers (TMF Mile High) 05/11/2006 When I read Wednesday that News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox brokered a deal to make available several of its shows at Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes music store, my mind immediately went to TiVo(Nasdaq: TIVO). "So, this is how it ends," I thought. What I mean is that the bigwigs at the networks know that live TV, save for sports events, is over. TiVo won. Not that couch potato surfing will go away immediately, of course. Television advertising remains a $100 billion-plus business, after all. But The Carmel Group reports that...

Watch it if you got it!

Will be repeated, hooray for Newsmax

NewsMax.com has broken the media’s censorship of the controversial documentary “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal” and has begun airing the film on national television. Beginning Saturday morning, NewsMax began airing the documentary directed by award-winning journalist Carlton Sherwood on national networks and in local networks across the nation. Sherwood’s account of John Kerry’s activities as a leader of the Vietnam anti-war movement has infuriated the Kerry campaign. “Very simply, the press has accepted everything John Kerry has said for the past 33 years,” Sherwood said, explaing the media’s reluctance to air his film or offer the public a detailed...

'Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal' Available One Night Only on Pay-Per-ViewENGLEWOOD, Colo., Oct 29, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- EchoStar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:DISH) and its DISH Network(TM) satellite TV service, the fastest growing TV provider in the past four years, announced today that for one night only, on Nov. 1, it will offer Carlton Sherwood's documentary film "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal" that focuses on Sen. John Kerry. This film is available to DISH Network's more than 10 million customers for $9.95 on channel 457 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time and channel 455 at 8 p.m. Pacific Time. DISH...

Dish Network has become the DNC's soapbox: Here at home we watch a channel called TV Colombia, mainly for news on our country of birth, and the New Democratic Network (527), the Enviromental Accountability Fund (another 527), and the DNC directly, same on other channels on the Spanish-channel package. And, as if it wasn't bad enough, we have English-speaking news networks CNN and MSNBC, but Fox News is conspicuously absent!!! So, I'd like to appeal to my fellow freeper's solidarity to tell Echostar dba Dish Network to be fair and stop treating Hispanics as DNC fresh meat!!!

We're closing on our new home today and now comes the decision about cable or dish. Charter is the cable company and after bad experiences with them in the past they are out. So now my decision is between DishNetwork or DIRECTV. Anyone have any opinions one way or the other? I would appreciate any comments.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Satellite TV giant EchoStar Communications Corp. pulled the plug on MTV, Nickelodeon and CBS affiliates in more than a dozen cities early Tuesday in an escalating legal dispute with Viacom Inc. over the price of programming. As many as 9 million customers of EchoStar's DISH Network nationwide were affected, including 1.6 million who watch CBS programming in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities. The move that could threaten their ability to watch, among other things, the March Madness (news - web sites) college basketball tournament. "We are willing to negotiate as soon as Viacom is...

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Satellite television provider EchoStar Communications Corp. pulled the plug on MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and local CBS affiliates early Tuesday in a contract dispute with Viacom Inc. over the price of programming. An estimated 1.6 million customers on EchoStar's DISH Network across the nation were affected, a move that could threaten their ability to watch, among other things, the March Madness college basketball tournament. In place of Viacom programming, some customers in the Denver area saw a message from EchoStar saying the multimedia giant was asking an unreasonable amount for its programming. A statement from Viacom after...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Echostar Communications Corp. (DISH) will drop the top-rated CBS network from its satellite television lineup rather than accede to demands of the network's owner, Viacom Inc. (VIA, VIAB), says Charles Ergen, Echostar chairman and chief executive. "This is extortion at the highest level," Ergen told reporters Thursday following a speech sponsored by the free-market think-tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation. "Viacom has crossed the line." EchoStar and Viacom are in a dispute over what rate EchoStar must pay for CBS and what Viacom cable networks it must carry. Ergen said Viacom threatened to withhold the Superbowl from EchoStar...

'Reel' effort in Berwick By LAURI SHEIBLEY Press Enterprise Writer BERWICK — A "Harry Potter" film will be shown free Saturday night on a giant screen in Ber-Vaughn Park. It's part of a campaign by GMP Communications to woo customers back to cable television. In the past few years, some customers have been shifting from the Hazleton cable firm to direct broadcast services. GMP is now trying to get those customers back, upgrading services and launching a series of community events. Prior to Saturday's movie, GMP will set up displays and demonstrations in the park to inform customers about the...

Nothing further, developing.

NEW YORK -- EchoStar Communications Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen, recently blocked by federal regulators from acquiring his main rival in the U.S. satellite-television market, has been talking with long-standing adversary Rupert Murdoch as well as Liberty Media Corp. about possibly selling his company, industry officials familiar with the contacts told The Wall Street Journal. There haven't been any formal negotiations, Mr. Ergen isn't commenting on his motives and it isn't clear what response these preliminary feelers have sparked. EchoStar currently has a market capitalization of $12.4 billion and debt of about $5.7 billion. The surprising twist could indicate that...

DETROIT - Hughes Electronics Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., and EchoStar Communications Corp. terminated their proposed merger of the nation's two biggest satellite television operations, the companies announced Tuesday. The government had taken steps to block the deal, and the companies said they called it off because it couldn't be completed within the time allowed. Hughes owns DirecTV, while EchoStar runs the Dish Network. The planned merger would have created a single powerhouse satellite TV service with 18 million subscribers. As part of the termination settlement, EchoStar has paid Hughes $600 million in cash, and Hughes, a General Motors...