Dish Network

Dish Network Corp. will compete against smaller wireless carriers and individual investors in the FCC’s auction of spectrum scheduled for January. On Jan. 22, the FCC will auction off the so-called H Block frequencies in the first opportunity that the commission has had for companies to acquire new spectrum since 2008.

When it lost a summary injunction back in September, the network said it wasn’t done trying to get Dish Network’s Hopper service shut down and on Wednesday ABC took another swing at it. In a brief dated Nov. 12 and filed yesterday (read it here) with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, ABC and Disney Enterprises went after the satellite provider’s ad-jumping DVR service again.

The broadcaster, whose stations have been off the satellite service since Oct. 1, tells the FCC that taking the Dish complaint contains false statements and granting it “would be the worst possible outcome for Dish customers and Media General viewers across the country.” And it asks the FCC to consider “appropriate actions for Dish’s abuse of the commission’s processes and for its misrepresentations to and lack of candor before the commission.”

CBS chief Les Moonves is taking Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen at his word after he said this week that there’s a way for broadcasters to benefit from his Hopper DVR, which automatically zaps ads on recorded shows. “We’re very flexible. We’re willing to negotiate,” Les Moonves told investors today at the Guggenheim Securities TMT Symposium.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen said he’s still “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a long-term deal with Disney for ABC stations and ESPN and other cable channels, saying Dish is looking for a way to deliver ads to Hopper DVR customers that would make more money for the programmer.

NEW YORK (AP) — Satellite TV broadcaster Dish Network Corp. posted a loss for the third quarter due to an expensive legal settlement, but subscriber trends improved as it continued […]

The video-rental chain Blockbuster will shutter the few hundred stores that it still has in the next two months, said the company’s owner, Dish Network.

An appeals court will have the opportunity to address the legality of place-shifting.

Dish Network formally appealed to the FCC to intervene in its retransmission-consent feud with Media General — whose TV stations in 17 markets have been dark on the satcaster since Oct. 1 — charging that the broadcaster has failed to negotiate in good faith.

The broadcaster and satellite service have a long-term deal covering Gray stations in 30 markets.

CBS affiliate KEYC Mankato, Minn., and its Fox subchannel were dropped this week from Dish Network. Because of a contract dispute that KEYC General Manager Marvin Rhodes deems irreparable for the time being, about 3,400 Dish customers in the Mankato area will be without the channels.

“Providing our viewers with important weather and safety information during storms is an integral part of our responsibility to our local communities,” said George L. Mahoney, president-CEO of Media General.

Media General’s WNCN Raleigh, N.C., created a website designed to tell viewers its side of the company’s retransmission consent dispute with Dish Network. The website is an example of the viewer education efforts being conducted by all of Media General’s stations during the impasse.

Satellite TV companies are not like cable TV companies — and that’s a long-term problem. They don’t have the extra-revenue-generating businesses, especially home and mobile phone services, that cable TV operators have.

The two main satellite-television providers have struggled to adjust to today’s technology, as more Americans shun pricey TV subscriptions and watch video over the Internet. “The end game is near,” Todd Lowenstein, a portfolio manager at Highmark Capitol Management, says. “You have a mature and really structurally challenged satellite-TV business. Both companies are thinking about their next steps now.”

Disney isn’t happy about the way Dish helps subscribers skip commercials automatically. But it does want Dish to carry two new channels.

In the latest blackout to hit the pay TV biz, Dish Network customers lost access to 18 stations run by Media General at midnight Tuesday, after the parties couldn’t work out a deal.

Dish Network and the Walt Disney Co. have extended the deadline on their negotiations for a new retransmission consent agreement beyond the current Monday deadline. The companies did not disclose how long the extension will run. The announcement characterized it as “short term.” The agreement covers the ABC-owned TV stations, ESPN and Disney Channel .

Dish Network, its chairman Charlie Ergen and several board members were slapped this week with a potential multi-million dollar complaint by shareholders. And they want him and the individual board member to pay up personally.

On Monday, a California judge made the latest ruling in the continuing legal saga over Dish’s ad-skipping Hopper. This one pertains to Dish’s Hopper with Sling, also known as “Dish Anywhere,” which was introduced with much fanfare at CES in January. Fox’s latest motion for a preliminary injunction has been denied. The ruling hasn’t been made public, but the parties are talking about what happened.

The Dish Network CEO is threatening to drop Disney-owned sports powerhouse ESPN from his satellite service because of its high cost. The possibility that the fourth-largest carrier could go without a key network is at the center of negotiations this week in Denver as the clock ticks toward a Sept. 30 deadline when the current Dish Network-Disney/ABC contract expires.

Dish Network’s ad-skipping recording feature survived a court bid by ABC to shut it down almost a year after a Los Angeles judge rejected a similar effort by other broadcasters. ABC’s request for a preliminary injunction against the ad-skipping service was denied yesterday by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who placed her opinion under seal because it contained confidential business information, according to a filing in federal court in Manhattan.

Media General’s Tampa, Fla., NBC affil says the satellite service’s subscribers will lose its signal if a new retransmission consent contract isn’t signed by midnight, Sept. 30.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a Dish Network director, Gary Howard, who resigned in recent weeks did so amid a disagreement over the company’s handling of a bid for telecom firm LightSquared Inc., that could deliver hundreds of millions of dollars of personal profits to Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

Now that CBS Corp. has prevailed in its monthlong dispute with Time Warner Cable, it’s Bob Iger’s turn to see how much his Walt Disney Co. can squeeze from a pay-TV carrier. Disney, owner of the most-expensive pay-TV channel in ESPN, faces a Sept. 30 deadline to reach a new agreement with Dish Network Corp., the second-largest U.S. satellite-TV provider.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has sold off its $38 million stake in newspaper publisher Gannett Company and purchased $23 million worth of shares in the Dish Network, according to SEC filings.

Fox announced Thursday that its new national sports network — Fox Sports 1 — is set to bow Saturday with all major cable, satellite and telco TV operators, including late holdouts DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable. FS1 will be distributed to about 90 million U.S. households, according to Fox.

Avoiding the carriage disputes that threatened to undermine their Aug, 17 launch, national cable channels Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 are on target for distribution deals with Time Warner Cable, Comcast, DirecTV and Dish, according to sources. While the ancestors for those channels, Speed and Fuel, had existing agreements with the distributors, terms had to be renegotiated given the higher profiles that FS1 and FS2 will have nationally.

Raycom stations in 36 markets returned to Dish Network over the weekend after being dark since Aug. 1.

Dish chief Charlie Ergen says the satcaster is prepared to part ways with Disney if the two companies can’t agree on a contract renewal by a Sept. 30 deadline.

The companies say that Raycom stations will be back on Dish Network “overnight,” and didn’t provide any details about the agreement. The broadcaster owns or controls 53 stations in 36 markets including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CW, and MyNetworkTV affiliates in cities including Cleveland, Toledo, Honolulu, Tucson, Baton Rouge, West Palm Beach, Louisville, and Memphis. The stations went dark on Dish on Aug. 1

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen says large media companies are “essentially monopolies” whose market power is pushing pay TV providers toward consolidation — and added that a merger with DirecTV “makes a lot of sense strategically.”

In the latest blowup over broadcast TV retransmission fees, Dish Network customers in 36 markets lost access to 53 television stations owned by Raycom Media after the companies failed to reach a new deal by midnight Wednesday.

A federal appeals court says a lower court was correct in deciding against Fox’s request that Dish be blocked from offering its set-top box features that automatically record all primetime programming on the Big Four broadcast networks and then automatically skip all the commercials on playback.

Liberty Media Corp. Chairman John Malone urged fellow billionaire Charlie Ergen to combine Dish Network Corp. with DirecTV to get the advantages of bigger bulk in the pay-TV business. “It would be good if DirecTV could combine with Echo or Dish or whatever Charlie calls it now just because scale economics in the media business drives down costs and makes it possible for larger investment,” Malone said in an interview at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Facing a June 30 deadline, Media General and Dish Network reached an agreement preventing the possible blackout of 17 stations on the satellite operator. The station group has agreed to give Dish a 90-day extension on the retransmission consent agreement scheduled to lapse over the weekend as negotiations continue.

Dish Network Corp. has bowed out of the battle for mobile service provider Clearwire Corp., marking the second major blow in less than a week to Dish chairman and founder Charlie Ergen and his plan to expand into wireless. The decision, announced on Wednesday, officially put an end to a bidding war between Dish and Clearwire’s majority owner Sprint Nextel Corp., and raised questions about what options Ergen has left in as he tries to expand beyond satellite TV services into the U.S. wireless market.

If a new contract is not signed by midnight, June 30, Dish customers will lose access to the Myrtle Beach, S.C., CBS affiliate.