Dish Network has been talking to several content providers about possibly licensing TV channels for a new pay TV service that would be delivered over the Internet, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal are reporting.
Of all the major pay TV providers, Dish would certainly seem to be the one most likely to undertake such an initiative. The company has been losing subscribers, even while its closest competitor, DirecTV, has made gains. And partnerships with key telcos, such as the one DirecTV renewed last week with AT&T, are sure to give the Dish rival an ongoing edge.
According to the news reports, Dish is contemplating a programming lineup that wouldn’t include sports channels in its most basic tier of service but which might include an over-the-air antenna for local feeds of the major broadcast networks. It sounds like Dish is shooting for an offering that would significantly undercut the pricing of its satellite and cable competitors—and if so, it would seem that the service could have a good chance of success.
The cable industry is waking up to the fact that there is a market for a lower-cost offering (CP: The 8 most provocative things heard at The Cable Show), and as their traditional business becomes increasingly saturated, it’s time someone pursued that market. Netflix already has demonstrated the viability of an Internet video delivery platform—and there also have been some advances in TV antenna technology (unfiltered: Mohu: Time Warner Cable said no to ‘OTT antenna’ ad).
As for the scale-back on sports programming, some readers may recall that CBS successfully competed against Monday Night Football back in the 1980s with an all-gal lineup of Kate & Allie, My Sister Sam and Cagney & Lacey. Undoubtedly the same sorts of people who watched those shows would be willing to forego the sports channels in exchange for better pricing.