Dish Network

Dish Network Corp. is in talks with banks about funding a bid for T-Mobile U.S. Inc. that would include as much as $15 billion in cash, in the latest sign the takeover effort is progressing. Dish is considering borrowing between $10 billion and $15 billion for the cash portion of a bid that would primarily be composed of its stock, according to people familiar with the matter.

Dispatch Broadcast Group’s NBC affil WTHR Indianapolis and CBS affil WBNS Columbus, Ohio, have posted alerts at their websites saying their current carriage deal with Dish expires on Monday, June 15, at 2 p.m. ET, and they “continue to work toward an agreement with Dish and hope to resolve this situation as soon as possible.”

Dish Network Corp. is in talks to merge with T-Mobile US Inc., people familiar with the matter said, a deal that would accelerate a wave of consolidation across the U.S. media and communications industries. The two sides are in close agreement about what the combined company would look like, with Dish CEO Charlie Ergen becoming the company’s chairman and his T-Mobile counterpart, John Legere, serving as the combined company’s CEO, the people said.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen is planning to take on Verizon and AT&T by creating a wireless video and data bundle, sources say. Ergen has spent the past six weeks aggressively building his $20-a-month Sling TV and meeting with programmers, sources say. Sling is expected to be paired with a cloud-based data service — using some of the $13 billion in wireless spectrum Dish won in a recent FCC auction.

The deals were a long time coming considering that Dish Network and Turner Broadcasting ended a month-long blackout of the programmer’s channels in November. Following temporary extensions of the carriage pacts that expired last year, the companies said today that Dish will continue to offer Time Warner’s Turner channels and HBO via “separate distribution agreements” that involve “multiple platforms.”

Dish Network released its fourth quarter 2014 financials on Monday morning before the market opened, posing a subscriber loss but a related revenue and net income gain.

Charlie Ergen, the brash entrepreneurial founder of Dish Network, will take over as CEO of the satcaster following the retirement of president and CEO Joe Clayton in March. Dish announced Monday that Clayton, who has been its chief exec since June 2011, will retire from his position effective March 31 and will also leave Dish’s board.

Charlie Ergen is using a new Web-entertainment service and $50 billion in airwaves to upend pay TV as we know it. The founder of Dish Network Corp. beat his rivals to market in February with Sling TV, a $20-a-month online service that offers live channels and sports at a fourth of the cost of a typical cable bundle. Including the latest government sale of wireless airwaves, Ergen has also amassed a $50 billion trove of spectrum that could let Englewood, Colo.-based Dish compete for data and voice customers for the first time.

Dish Network roiled the TV industry with its AutoHop technology that enables subscribers to automatically delete commercials from blocks of primetime network programming. On Thursday, the satellite TV giant introduced a new AutoHop gimmick just in time for Sunday’s Super Bowl extravaganza. “Instead of automatically skipping commercials, customers will have the option to instead skip the game and watch only the commercials,” a Dish spokesman said.

Today, Dish Network and El Rey Network announced that El Rey Network is now available to Dish customers. El Rey Network is an English-language general entertainment network founded by filmmaker […]

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois has found Dish Network liable for tens of millions of calls that violated the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule. The opinion, which was issued on Dec. 12, 2014, represents a partial summary judgment win in the case the Department of Justice filed on behalf of the FTC against Dish in March 2009.

A federal judge said Dish Network’s offering of features that automatically skip ads and another that allows subscribers to watch live broadcasts remotely do not violate copyright law. But U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee’s ruling, unsealed on Tuesday, came just days after Dish and the network challenging its features, Fox, said that a settlement of their litigation was “highly likely.” Their litigation was put on hold until October, when a retransmission contract between the companies is set to expire.

The multi-year deal restores Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network to the satellite service. Terms were not disclosed.

The FCC asked Dish Network Wednesday how it reached agreements to carry channels on its new Sling online TV service, as the agency’s review of Comcast’s $45 billion deal to acquire Time Warner Cable heats up. The agency wants “any and all of its agreements with the following programming entities relating to video programming to be provided on Dish’s Sling TV service,” including “all documents relating to each negotiation”: A&E Networks, CBS, Comcast, ABC, E.W. Scripps and Turner Broadcasting System.

Capitol Broadcasting’s Raleigh, N.C. duopoly of WRAL (CBS) and WRAZ (Fox) are once again available to Dish Network subscribers. The blackout of the two stations, which began Dec. 22, ended at 9 p.m. Tuesday, according to Steven Hammel, the stations’ general manager.

For many TV viewers, the only reason to keep paying for expensive cable subscriptions is to watch sports. And for that, they invariably need ESPN, the powerful network that has exclusive rights to many of the country’s most popular football and basketball games. With yesterday’s announcement that Dish Network will offer ESPN and other cable programming with its new Sling TV streaming service, that linchpin is being removed.  2015 is shaping up to be the year when consumers have more reasons than ever to abandon the expensive bundles of cable channels offered by companies like Comcast and Verizon.

Dish Network plans to unveil the first major online television service from a cable or satellite company, a $20-a-month set of 12 channels that targets U.S. customers who don’t want to pay for larger, more expensive TV packages. Called Sling TV, the service will offer live feeds of sports, news and scripted shows on TVs, computers and mobile devices.

As the carriage fight between Fox News Channel and Dish Network stretches into its second week, Dish Network chief Charlie Ergen is blaming an “extortion” attempt by Fox for the impasse that led to a blackout in the early hours of Dec. 21.

The current deal between Dish and 21st Century Fox expired on Saturday at midnight, so now Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network are not available on the satellite TV provider. Both sides in the latest spat are blaming each other. Dish says that 21st Century Fox was blocking access to the two chancels as part of contract negotiations. Fox says Dish shut down the server at 11:50 p.m. Saturday, 10 minutes before the contract ended.

Dish Network subscribers will continue to receive Journal Broadcast Group stations in nine markets.

The satellite TV company said today that it is adding the Netflix app to its latest set-top boxes, its second-generation Hopper devices released in February 2013. Dish wouldn’t say how many customers have that box.

Dish Network Corp does not want to include broadcast channels in the basic package for its planned online TV service, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The second-largest U.S. satellite TV company’s plan to exclude broadcasters could become a sticking point in deals with major media companies, the Journal said.

Maybe the most interesting facet of CBS’s Saturday deal with Dish Network is its exemption from AutoHop. You can’t skip ads anymore on The Big Bang Theory, folks. On the bright side, CBS is no longer suing Dish over the technology. And that leaves a very interesting question open: Is AutoHop now less attractive as an incentive to consumers than as a bargaining chip in carriage negotiations?

It agrees to continue negotiating a new distribution agreement with the satellite service covering its 60 stations until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Dec. 10.

CBS and Dish Network reached a multi-year carriage agreement after CBS-owned stations went dark in 18 markets on Friday night. According to the agreement made early on Saturday morning, Dish can carry the CBS O&Os, as well as CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel, TVGN and Showtime Networks, which includes Showtime TV Everywhere and Video-on-Demand rights. Additionally, the companies have agreed to drop pending litigation over Dish’s AutoHop commercial-skipping functionality after Dish agreed the tool will not be available for CBS-owned stations and affiliates in the first week of a program airing.

CBS has chosen not to blink in its standoff with Dish Network. Effective 7 p.m. ET Friday, CBS programming is no longer available in New York , Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Dallas, Denver, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and several other markets, the network said. The decision to go dark in those cities follows a protracted dispute between the two companies over how much Dish should pay to carry CBS programming, a dispute that has occasionally turned ugly, with harsh words being hurled on both sides.

Sixty stations are potentially affected as the station group and satellite distributor have yet to reach a new distribution agreement.

CBS has issued a one-line statement saying its programming remains on Dish Network for now as negotiations continue into the evening past a 7 p.m. ET deadline that CBS had imposed. “CBS remains on the air with Dish while negotiations progress into the evening,” the statement said.

CBS just threw down the gauntlet: Dish Network subscribers will lose access to CBS-owned stations Thursday at 7 p.m. ET/4 PT if they can’t reach terms on a new carriage deal. The broadcaster says that after six months of talks Dish has “not been operating with the same sense of urgency” to make a deal.

CBS and Dish Network have set a second short-term contract extension to avoid a blackout while negotiations on a carriage deal for CBS-owned TV stations progress with the satellite service. The latest extension will stretch into next week, giving both sides breathing room during the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The companies just made the terse announcement that they have “mutually decided to restore service of CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, truTV, TCM, HLN, CNN en Espanol and Boomerang, and extend the carriage of TBS and TNT” — but will have no “further comment.”

On Thursday afternoon CBS issued this statement about its negotiations with Dish Network: “CBS has agreed to a short term extension while negotiations continue.” Two days earlier the network was much more verbal, when it turned up the heat on Dish as the companies negotiate an extension of the broadcaster’s carriage agreement.

The rhetoric is flying again as TV networks square off against pay TV companies over how much money their programming is worth. But this time the networks may benefit from a scheduling coincidence that plays in their favor. Dish Network is currently juggling negotiations with two big programmers, CBS and Turner Broadcasting. While high-profile carriage disputes have become common, CBS has a potential new tool in its negotiations this time: the All Access service it introduced last month, allowing users to pay $5.99 a month for access to live-streamed, on-demand and older shows without a traditional pay-TV subscription.

With negotiations going down to the wire, CBS is warning of a potential blackout of its TV stations for millions of customers of satellite giant Dish Network. Dish’s current distribution contract with CBS expires Thursday, which could lead to a blackout of CBS’s signal in 14 markets where CBS has O&Os. “Dish has been deliberately dragging its feet for months,” CBS said today in a statement. “Now, as the deadline nears, Dish appears willing to drop the most popular programming in its entire channel lineup because it won’t negotiate the same sort of deal that other cable, satellite and [telecommunication] companies have struck with CBS.”

CBS started alerting viewers Friday night that Dish Network could pluck out the Eye in certain markets, in the latest dispute to hit the pay-TV biz. “Attention, Dish customers! You could soon lose CBS,” the broadcaster’s spots said. Over all, there are 14 CBS-owned stations covered under Dish agreement, plus seven CW, two My Network TV and three independent stations. CBS’s contract with Dish is set to expire Nov. 20. In addition, Showtime and CBS Sports Network could be affected on Dish if the companies fail to reach an agreement.

Dish has joined two other pay-TV companies, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV, to form the American Television Alliance. ATVA’s strategy, led by the big three, is simple — to manufacture as many TV blackouts of both cable networks and local broadcast stations as possible in hopes that Congress will “reform” a system that ATVA’s members have deliberately tried to break.