| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NASDAQ: DISH |
| Industry | Satellite television |
| Founded | March 4, 1996 |
| Founder(s) | Charlie Ergen Candy Ergen Jim DeFranco[1] |
| Headquarters | Meridian, Colorado[1], USA |
| Key people | Charles W. Ergen (Chairman) Joseph Clayton (President & CEO) |
| Products | Direct broadcast satellite, Pay television, Pay-per-view |
| Revenue | US$ 12.64 billion (2010)[2] |
| Operating income | US$ 1.94 billion (2010)[2] |
| Profit | US$ 984 million (2010)[2] |
| Total assets | US$ 9.63 billion (2010)[2] |
| Total equity | US$ -1.13 billion (2010)[2] |
| Employees | 22,000 (June 2011)[2] |
| Subsidiaries | Blockbuster LLC, DBSD North America, Inc. & Liberty Bell Telecom |
| Website | www.dishnetwork.com www.dishonline.com |
Dish Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States,[3] providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million[4] commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish Network has approximately 24,500 employees, most of which are located within the U.S. The corporate office is based in Meridian, Colorado, though the postal designation of Englewood is used in the company's mailing address.
Echostar Satellite L.L.C. was founded by Charlie Ergen, his wife Candy and their friend Jim DeFranco as a satellite television equipment distributor in 1980. Echostar was officially re-branded as DISH Network in March 1996. This branding came after the successful launch of its first satellite, Echostar I in December 1995 and marked the beginning of the company offering subscription television services. The company has since launched numerous satellites, with 14 owned and leased satellites currently in its fleet.
As of January 2008[update], DISH Network split from Echostar, with each entity becoming a separate company. Echostar is the key technology partner to DISH Network, which focuses only on marketing and providing satellite television service. Since June 20, 2011, Joseph Clayton has had day-to-day control of the company.[3]
As of 2011[update], the company competes primarily with satellite rival DirecTV and with cable television providers, but telecommunication companies' development of fiber-optic lines has increasingly become competition for the company. The company is a Fortune 200 company. The company plans on diversifying into streaming video and mobile internet.
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Dish Network officially began operations in March 1996 as a service of EchoStar. EchoStar was formed in 1980 by its chairman and chief executive officer, Charles Ergen along with colleagues Candy Ergen and Jim Defranco, as a distributor of C band satellite television systems. In 1987, EchoStar applied for a direct broadcast satellite broadcast license with the Federal Communications Commission and was granted access to orbital slot 119° west longitude in 1992.[5]
On December 28, 1995, EchoStar successfully launched its first satellite, EchoStar I. With this and the completion of the construction of the satellite uplink center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, The Dish Network brand name was born to represent the home satellite TV service. In March, 1996, the company made its first broadcast to customers.
In 1998, EchoStar purchased the broadcasting assets of a satellite broadcasting joint venture of News Corporation's ASkyB and MCI Worldcom. With this purchase EchoStar obtained 28 of the 32 transponder licenses in the 110° West orbital slot, more than doubling existing continental United States broadcasting capacity at a value of $682.5 million. The acquisition inspired the company to introduce a multisatellite system called Dish 500, theoretically capable of receiving more than 500 channels on one Dish. In the same year, Echostar, partnering with Bell Canada, launched Dish Network Canada.
In January 1999, the company released the industry's first High-definition television (HDTV) tuner. In August 2003, the company launched Echostar IX, the first satellite equipped with commercial Ka band payload for broadband service over the United States. This led the company in 2004 to be the first satellite TV service to offer local channels to all 50 states. In that year, the company also introduced the nation's first interactive TV multiple picture-in picture application for the Olympic Games, offering coverage from multiple channels at once. This year the company also acquired its 10 millionth customer.
In January 2005, EchoStar bought the broadcasting assets of the troubled HDTV satellite provider Voom, including its Rainbow 1 satellite co-located with EchoStar 3 at 61.5° West. On April 29, EchoStar announced that it would expand its HDTV programming by adding the first 10 of 21 original Voom channels and mirror the channels on a CONUS slot. Dish Network added CNN HD in Spanish along with other packages in its Latino HD lineup.
On January 1, 2008, the company completed its spinoff of its technology and set top box business into a separate publicly traded company, Echostar Corporation ("Echostar"), effectively splitting the original Echostar into two separate businesses.[6] Dish Network Corporation, the larger of the two resulting companies, focuses on programming, service and marketing of satellite television, while EchoStar Corporation runs a majority of the satellite fleet and other signal infrastructure. While neither company has any ownership in the other, the majority of the voting power of the shares in both companies is owned by Charlie Ergen.
DishOnline is Dish Network's subscriber-only streaming video service which includes HBO and Cinemax programming.[7]
In 2011, Dish spent over $3 billion dollars in acquisitions of companies in bankruptcy.[8] This includes the April 6, 2011 purchase of Blockbuster Inc. in a bankruptcy auction in New York, agreeing to pay $322 million in cash and assume $87 million in liabilities and other obligations for the nationwide video-rental company.[9] Dish also acquired the defunct companies DBSD and Terrestar.[8] Dish also made a bid to purchase Hulu on October 2011, but Hulu's owners chose not to sell the company.[10] There is also speculation that Dish might purchase Sprint or Clearwire[11] CEO Charles Ergen plans on added wireless internet and mobile video services that can compete with Netflix and cable companies.[8] About the new markets, Ergen said, "Given the assets we’ve been accumulating, I don’t think it’s hard to see we’re moving in a different direction from simply pay-TV, which is a market that’s becoming increasingly saturated."[8]
Dish put its Blockbuster acquisition to work by announcing Blockbuster movie pass, which allows on-demand movies, game and DVD rentals, and online streaming services for a flat monthly fee. Dish plans a similar services for non-Dish customers. As Blockbuster had agreements that allow it to receive DVDs 28 days earlier than Netflix, the new service could be major competition.[8]
Dish also plans on offering high-speed internet. The company plans a hybrid satellite/terrestrial mobile broadband service. In 2011, it petitioned the FCC to combine the S-Band spectrum it acquired from DBSD and Terrestar, and combine this spectrum with LTE. Unlike Lightsquared, Dish's spectrum has minimal risk of disrupting Global Positioning Systems.[12]
Dish Network offers different types of satellite receiving equipment for obtaining signals from its diverse satellite fleet. Most of their consumer boxes are manufactured by Sanmina-SCI Corporation to EchoStar specifications. Prior to the December, 2001 merger of SCI Systems and Sanmina, Dish Network receivers were produced at factories in Huntsville, Alabama and Fountain, Colorado. Currently, receiver assembly takes place in Guadalajara, Mexico and India.
Dish Network's first satellite antenna was simply called the "Dish Network" Dish. It was retroactively named the "Dish 300" when legal and satellite problems forced delays of the forthcoming Dish 500 systems. It uses one LNB to obtain signals from the 119°W orbital location,[13] and was commonly used as a second Dish to receive additional high-definition or ethnic programming from either the 148°W or 61.5°W orbital locations.[14][15] The 119°W slot is one of two primary orbital locations, the other being 110°W, that provide core services.[16][17]
After EchoStar obtained the broadcasting assets of a failed joint venture between ASkyB and MCI WorldCom, it had more than doubled its capacity by adding 28 transponders at the 110°W orbital location. Since EchoStar also owned the adjacent 119°W orbital location it developed the Dish 500 to receive the signals of both orbital locations using one Dish and an innovative dual-LNB assembly. Although the new 20-inch Dish 500 was slightly larger than the then-current 18-inch Dish 300 and DirecTV Dishes it had the distinct advantage of obtaining signals from EchoStar's two adjacent satellite locations for a theoretical 500-channel capacity. The Dish 500, as a result, provided very large capacity for local-into-local service, nationwide programming, and business services. In order to migrate existing customers to Dish 500, Dish Network provides value-added channels in addition to local channels that can only be received with the Dish 500 and newer systems. Some of these channels exclusive to these newer systems are H2, Boomerang, Science, Planet Green, and Comedy Central.
In spite of all this capacity, EchoStar still needed to fulfill the dream of nationwide high-definition television and conceived the Dish 1000 system to receive signals from 110°W, 119°W, and 129°W orbital locations. Originally, Dish Network high-definition subscribers required two separate satellite dishes. Currently, Dish Network subscribers can receive nationwide HDTV channels using the 129°W orbital location or 61.5°W orbital location. Because of issues with low signal strength, the older model Dish 1000 has been replaced with the Dish 1000.2. The 1000.2 has a 10% larger reflector for better signal strength and an integrated LNB for easier installation. The Dish 1000.2 is 23 in (580 mm) in diameter. Even with the larger size, there are still many reports of customers consistently losing signal on the 129°W orbital location. This has forced some customers to either use a 2nd separate dish network brand dish, or an aftermarket 30" dish, aimed specifically at the 129°W orbital location. On several satellite related web support forums, customers have critically suggested that the new Dish 1000.2 wasn't nearly large enough and should have been 20%-30% larger to properly deal with rain fade.
During Dish Network's quest for capacity, they had accumulated an array of satellite broadcasting technologies, orbital locations, and surplus capacity using non-mainstream technologies requiring larger Dish sizes. To capitalize on these broadcasting assets, Dish Network started providing extensive ethnic programming from lower-powered satellites broadcasting in the non-DBS portion of the FSS band. Dish Network offers specialized equipment for these customers including larger Dish antennas.
The SuperDish, Dish 500+, and Dish 1000+ systems receive DBS signals from both of the primary 110°W and 119°W locations (129°W for Dish 1000+) as well as lower-powered FSS signals from either 121°W, 105°W, or 118.75°W. The Dish 500+ and 1000+ systems receive circularly-polarized signals in the non-DBS portion of the FSS band—the only American satellite television service to do so.
While for years Dish Network has used standard MPEG-2 for broadcasting, the addition of bandwidth-intensive HDTV in a limited-bandwidth world has called for a change to an H.264/MPEG4 AVC system. Dish Network announced as of February 1, 2006, that all new HDTV channels would be available in H.264 format only, while maintaining the current lineup as MPEG-2. Dish Network intends to eventually convert the entire platform to H.264 in order to provide more channels to subscribers. In 2007, Dish Network reduced the resolution of 1080-line channels from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080. Reducing horizontal resolution and/or data rate of HD video is known as HD Lite and is practiced by other TV providers as well.
Both a standard receiver and a receiver with built-in digital video recorder (DVR) are available to subscribers. The Dish Network ViP722 HD DVR (Record up to 350 hours of standard-definition (SD), up to 55 hours of high-definition (HD) replacement to the ViP622 has received generally positive reviews[18] from CNET and others.
Both a standard receiver and a DVR (digital video recorder) are available to subscribers for an upgrade fee. Beginning in January 2010, Dish Network charges $6.00 as a DVR service fee, which covers cost of licensing EPG (electronic program guide) from TV Guide.
Most of the satellites used by Dish Network are owned and operated by Echostar Corporation. Since EchoStar frequently moves satellites among its many orbiting slots this list may not be immediately accurate. Refer to Lyngsat and Dish Channel Chart for detailed satellite information.
| Satellite | Location (Degrees West) | Launched | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EchoStar XV | 61.5 | July 10, 2010 |
A CONUS only satellite. |
|
| Echostar XII | 61.5 | July 17, 2003 | Lockheed-Martin AS-2100 | Originally known as Rainbow 1, this satellite was launched by Cablevision/Rainbow DBS and used for the Voom DBS service at 61.5° W until the satellite and transponder licenses were sold to EchoStar in 2005. Renamed EchoStar 12 in March 2006. Currently only used for spotbeam capabilities. |
| EchoStar III | 61.5 | October 5, 1997 | Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space A2100AX | Replaced by EchoStar XV. Now serving as an in orbit spare. |
| Nimiq 5 | 72.7 | September 17, 2009 | Space Systems/Loral LS-1300 | A Canadian satellite operated by Telesat Canada. Echostar leases the satellite's capacity. |
| EchoStar VI | 77 | July 14, 2000 | Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 | Replaces EchoStar VIII. |
| EchoStar VIII | 77 | August 21, 2002 | Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) FS-1300 | Formerly at 110. On January 30, 2011, the satellite experienced a single event upset and drifted out of its intended orbit, this required all services to be relocated to other available satellite capacity in the Eastern Arc. One week later some services were restored, but the satellite is expected to be taken out of service again and replaced temporarily by EchoStar VI in order to conduct further testing. |
| EchoStar I | 77 | December 28, 1995 | Lockheed Martin Astro Space Series 7000 (AS-7000) | Can carry a limited number of services on odd numbered transponders. Used for Dish Network Mexico. EchoStar is not licensed to serve CONUS customers in the United States from this location but may transmit local stations. |
| EchoStar IV | 77 | May 8, 1998 | Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space A2100AX | This satellite had a launch issue, is now in an inclined orbit and is not currently operational. It largely serves as a placeholder for EchoStar slots. |
| EchoStar X | 110 | February 15, 2006 | Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space A2100AX | |
| EchoStar XI | 110 | July 16, 2008 | SS/L 1300 | |
| Anik F3[19] | 118.75 | April 12, 2007 | Astrium Eurostar 3000 | Customers use the 36 inch Dish 500+ or Dish 1000+ to receive this non-DBS, medium-powered signal. Anik F3 is leased by EchoStar from Telesat Canada to serve CONUS customers. It broadcasts on non-DBS FSS frequencies using circular polarity (the only satellite serving the United States in this mode). It permanently replaces AMC-16 which was temporarily placed at 118.75° W due to delays in Anik F3 production. AMC-16 moved back to 85° W when Anik F3 was fully operational. A primarily international satellite with international channels once on 61.5, 121, or 148. |
| EchoStar VII | 119 | February 21, 2002 | Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space A2100AX | Currently an on orbit spare. Provides Dish Network's spot beam services to the western United States, as well as Muzak programming to businesses on leased bandwidth. |
| Echostar XIV | 119 | March 20, 2010 | Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 | Replaced Echostar VII. |
| EchoStar IX/ Galaxy 23 | 121 | August 7, 2003 | Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 | Customers use SuperDish 121 to receive this non-DBS, medium-powered signal. Satellite is jointly owned by EchoStar and Intelsat. The Ku band is owned by EchoStar. Ka band payload owned by EchoStar and is used for leased closed-circuit broadcasts as of March 2011. C band payload owned by Intelsat and is known as Galaxy 23. Non-DBS Programming has now been removed from EchoStar IX and is being provided from 118.7 |
| Ciel-2 | 129 | December 10, 2008 | Thales Alenia Space Spacebus-4000C4 | Replaced Echostar-V at the 129°W orbital location. Owned by Canadian Ciel Satellite Group, EchoStar leases the entire bandwidth of the Ciel-2 satellite. Provides national HD programming and HD spotbeam locals. |
| EchoStar V | Deorbited from 148 | September 23, 1999 | Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 | EchoStar V was moved from 110 to 129 and finally to 148. International programming at 148 has moved to Anik F3/118.75°. Locals have moved to spotbeams at other locations. The satellite was to serve as a placeholder for EchoStar at the 148 slot. The satellite was experiencing stability issues which made signal levels unstable for the short time it was located at 148. On 31 July 2009 all remaining programming at 148 ceased. Factors now indicate discontinuation of the 148 slot, at least for the short term, 3–4 years. |
Dish Network lost a court case in October 2006, and was forced to remove all out-of-market distant network channels for the ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX networks on December 1 of that year. This ruling affected all Dish Network subscribers with these channels which are outside their local area. However, these channels can still be received via All American Direct's Distant Network Package.
Dish Network independent dealers have repeatedly been charged and fined for employing illegal telemarketing tactics, such as violating do not call lists and making calls in which a live telemarketer does not connect promptly after the call is answered. Most recently, Dish Network has moved proactively with legal action against independent dealers committing such violations. Furthermore, beginning in late 2008 and continuing as late as January 8, 2009, Dish Network has launched a campaign to terminate agreements with independent dealers regarding business practices that defraud either the customer or Dish Network itself. Press releases have been issued just about monthly with a new list of dealers who have been terminated from their association with Dish Network.[20][21][22] Despite this, in March 2009 the Federal Trade Commission charged Dish Network and two of its dealers with multiple violations of the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.[23]
In 2004, thirteen states charged that Echostar, then the parent company of Dish Network, had not disclosed termination fees to potential customers and had debited customers' bank accounts for hidden fees. The company settled the lawsuit, paid $5 million, and promised to disclose all terms prior to signing contracts with potential customers.[24]
Dish Network has had a lengthy history of programming disagreements.
Dish Network began negotiations with GTN (Gay Television Network) to carry the channel. GTN sent out a press release on February 2, 2001, announcing its launch and that its channel would be carried by Dish Network. Dish Network responded by denying that any contract had been signed and that the press release was premature. The president of GTN responded by calling Dish Network "homophobic".[25][26][27] In April 2002, Dish Network signed a contract to carry GTN, renamed to Triangle Television Network, then Q Television Network.[28] As of May 29, 2009[update] Dish Network now offers the Logo channel (HD only) in an add-on package (Platinum HD) along with 10 other HD channels for a $10 monthy fee.[29]
Dish Network has recently been in several disputes in some markets to carry their local channels.[30][31]
In early 2004, CBS/Viacom has pulled its networks and local channels from Dish Network including channels from MTV Networks (MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, etc.), BET, as well as 10 CBS O&O stations after talks with them and Echostar broke down.[32] The blackout only lasted for 2 days after both parties reached a deal.[33]
On August 4, 2009 Dish Network sued ESPN for $1 million in a federal lawsuit, alleging that it had breached its contract by not extending the same carriage terms the programmer provided to Comcast and DirecTV for ESPNU and ESPN Classic. The lawsuit claims ESPN violated the "Most Favored Nations" clause.[34]
The next day, ESPN announced they will fight the lawsuit and said in a press release: "We have repeatedly advised Dish that we are in full compliance with our agreement and have offered them a distribution opportunity with respect to ESPNU and ESPN Classic consistent with the rest of the industry. We will not renegotiate settled contracts and will vigorously defend this legal action, the apparent sole purpose of which is to get a better deal."[35]
Dish Network moved ESPNU from its "America's Top 250" package to its "America's Top 120" package on September 30, 2009. However they claim it has nothing to do with the lawsuit.[36]
On June 22, 2010, The Walt Disney Company (owner of ESPN) pulled ESPNews HD, Disney Channel HD, Disney XD HD and ABC Family HD from the Dish Network channel list although the standard definition channels remained.[37]
On May 20, 2010, Dish Network announced that it was dropping The Weather Channel at midnight ET that day in favor of its own similar weather information channel, The Weather Cast. The switch was due to high rates that the Weather Channel demanded Dish Network to pay (the Weather Channel requested a rate increase from 11 cents per subscriber per month[38] to 12 cents.[39] As of May 24, The Weather Channel stated that it had come to an agreement with Dish Network that would result in Dish carrying The Weather Channel for the next several years.[40] Despite the earlier announcement that The Weather Channel would be dropped, the channel was never officially removed from Dish Network. The Weather Cast was discontinued in anticipation of a Weatherscan-based service that would provide local weather information for Dish Network customers. The financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed at this time.
On October 1, 2010, Dish Network lost FX, National Geographic Channel, and regional FSN channels due to a dispute with Fox. The dispute stems from what Dish Network calls an "unprecedented increase" in Fox's asking price, Fox on the other hand claims that they are simply asking for fair compensation for their channels.[41] The rate dispute of FOX networks has abandoned DISH Network's viewers access to 19 FOX Regional Sports Networks and to even some other programming. Dave Shull, senior vice president of Programming for DISH Network has said "DISH Network is not going to allow FOX or any programmer to bully our customers into paying such an unconscionable price increase. FOX has a long history of trying to shake down pay TV providers, including Cablevision, Time Warner, and Bright House."[42] The network is additionally negotiating for their O&O Fox stations, and is also acting as negotiator in lieu of Local TV LLC for their affiliates which were formerly owned by the network. However, both parties came to a long-term agreement on October 29, restoring FX, National Geographic Channel, and FSN regional networks, plus viewers will continue to see programming from local Fox & MyNetworkTV O&O channels for years to come. The financial terms of the deal were never disclosed.[43] A similar dispute happened between FOX and DirecTV.
On October 1, 2010, Dish Network subscribers lost the MSG and MSG+ regional sports networks due to a contract dispute with Madison Square Garden, Inc. MSG called on Dish to resume negotiations and reconsider it's proposals but there has still been no mutual agreement between the parties as of December 22, 2011. MSG is linking carriage of these networks to their sister-network Fuse which was replaced with Palladia in July 2010."
It was announced on October 29 that Belo Corporation and Dish Network were in a carriage dispute regarding rates. ABC affiliates WFAA in Dallas, Texas, KVUE in Austin, Texas, CBS affiliates KHOU in Houston, Texas, WWL-TV in New Orleans, Louisiana, Fox affiliate KMSB in Tucson, Arizona and 10 other local stations are affected. Two days later, both Belo and Dish reached an agreement, avoiding a service interruption. Belo had offered Dish an extension while negotiations were taking place. Had there been no agreement made by October 31 at Midnight (all time zones), Belo would have pulled these channels from Dish Network.[44] If the Fox Networks dispute would've continued throughout that time period, this combination would've created the biggest blow to Dish Network customers since Echostar's disagreement with CBS/Viacom in 2004.
On April 1, 2011, Dish Network pulled SportsNet New York (which broadcasts New York Mets games) from its channel lineup due to a carriage dispute. As a result, Dish becomes the only satellite provider not to carry any Regional Sports Networks in the New York area.[45]
On August 9, 2011, Dish Network pulled INSP from its channel lineup asking 10 million to continue broadcasting this channel. INSP returned to Dish Network's lineup on August 31, 2011.
On December 15, 2011, Dish Network pulled WWTV and WFQX, 2 stations in the Northern Michigan television market owned by Heritage Broadcasting, citing "an outrageous fee increase"[46]. The dispute was resolved on December 20th[47], restoring those 2 channels to the lineup.
Authorized Dish Network retailers are subdivided into regions they service: local and national. Local authorized direct broadcast satellite retailers are numerous, but only service a limited geographic range. National authorized Dish retailers service consumers in multiple localities across the U.S. and include, but are not limited to, providers such as Sterling Satellite,[49] Dish Pronto,[50] US Dish, Infinity Dish, and VMC Satellite.[51]
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