In a presentation explaining his bold vision for the company, DISH’s CEO Charlie Ergen detailed plans to provide seamless mobile access to subscription TV content (based around DISH’s Sling and Hopper technology), and a plan to offer fixed wireless broadband to the estimated 40 million households that lack access to high bandwidth fiber or cable networks. Crucially, the latter would be accomplished using a combination of Clearwire’s 2.5GHz spectrum as well as satellite broadband.

That’s the theory, but in practice commentators have questioned whether the leverage inherent in DISH’s bid – for what is a considerably larger company – will constrain the ability of a merged Sprint/DISH to invest in the Sprint network and implement these plans. Further, many expect that Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, will outbid Ergen – despite his protestations to the contrary.  Ergen’s vision for DISH’s future is bold and exciting, but the question ultimately is whether Sprint is crucial to achieving it, and whether it can even work without Clearwire.

Sprint not a requirement for mobile delivery

With respect to the delivery of seamless mobile video, DISH already has most of the necessary technology available. After all, you can already use Sling on your mobile device today. The only real constraint is that the cost of wireless capacity makes it prohibitively expensive to watch mobile video on a metered 4G data plan. If DISH does indeed acquire Sprint, then it could potentially exempt Sling content from any data caps implemented for Sprint subscribers, thereby making seamless usage more feasible (and an attractive marketing point for potential new subscribers).

Nonetheless, there is nothing unique about Sprint’s network that makes it a necessary component to that strategy: DISH could just as easily shop its AWS-4 spectrum to T-Mobile for instance, which could  deliver a similar offering.

Wireless broadband crucial for success

Unlike DISH’s mobile video plans, which are responding to potential longer-term shifts in video consumption, DISH’s ambitions to deliver fixed broadband to the home appear to be far more critical to the near-term competitive position of its satellite TV business. Importantly, the entire plan appears to be predicated on the use of Clearwire’s spectrum for a national deployment. In particular, DISH is at a substantial disadvantage compared to cable and telco TV solutions, which offer integrated broadband and video-on-demand capabilities.

DISH has been attempting to acquire around 40MHz of spectrum from Clearwire since last summer, and it is hard to see where else it could hope to dig up that much spectrum for a fixed wireless broadband network, at a reasonable price – unless DISH uses its own AWS-4 spectrum. However doing so would limit Ergen’s leverage to strike a deal with a wireless operator. Alternatively, DISH could attempt to repurpose LightSquared’s spectrum, but that would be fraught with difficulties.

The greater flexibility DISH has in realizing its mobile video plans vs its fixed broadband ones suggests it may be far more important for it to acquire some of Clearwire’s spectrum than to buy all of Sprint right now. After all, if Deutsche Telekom is willing to strike a deal with DISH after completing its merger with MetroPCS, then Ergen could deploy the 2.5GHz Clearwire spectrum on T-Mobile’s network.

So the question is, might SoftBank agree to sell part of Clearwire’s spectrum to DISH, in exchange for DISH agreeing to withdraw its bid for Sprint? That would certainly be logical, but with two billionaires’ egos at stake, it’s never a given that the most rational outcome will prevail.

Tim Farrar is president of Telecom, Media and Finance Associates, a consulting and research firm in Menlo Park, Calif., which specializes in technical and financial analysis across the satellite and telecom sectors.He blogs on wireless and satellite issues at tmfassociates.com; follow him on Twitter @TMFAssociates.

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The motion seeks to uncover “any ‘actual, contemplated, considered, or proposed’ business arrangements” between Aereo and Dish as well as “offers or expressions of interest by Dish in acquiring Aereo’s assets,” according to passages quoted by the Reporter. Of course, Dish doesn’t want any of those discussions to be public, which is why the company is now trying to quash the subpoena.

Dish’s Charlie Ergen has been very vocal in his support for new TV business and distribution models, going as far as saying that “a lot of customers can live with Netflix and an… antenna, and YouTube.” Dish could possibly use Aereo to build a cheaper TV bundle by bypassing retransmission payments to local broadcasters — or maybe just lower these payments by threatening such a course.

Make sure to check out our paidContent Live conference in New York this month if you want to learn more about Aereo’s potential to shake up the TV industry – I’ll be interviewing Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia on stage, and will make sure to quizz him about Dish as well.

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Ergen also reiterated his position that a la carte programming would be better for consumers, as well as the industry itself. “We are still for a la carte, because the Internet is a la carte today,” he said. People could just watch Netflix, or even pirate content online, and service providers would have to compete with this new reality. “A lot of customers can live with Netflix and an… antenna, and YouTube…  and they’d be pretty happy,” he said.

However, Ergen cautioned the audience at Dive into Media that a la carte won’t become a reality anytime soon. “It’s gonna go there slowly,” he said, arguing that the major broadcasters won’t break the bundle willingly. It would be more likely that the bundle would be broken by outside forces like Amazon and Netflix.

Speaking of Netflix: Ergen was quite bullish when asked about the future of the video service. “I think they will be successful,” he said, adding that the launch of Netflix’s first original series House of Cards was “brilliant.”

He said that it would be possible for both Amazon and Netflix to succeed with their respective services – but it was quite clear that Ergen is rooting for Netflix: “I’m a fan,” he said, adding: “I feel stupid that we didn’t think of it first, but I’m a fan.”

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Some of the app’s functionality may seem familiar: second-screen apps like Zeebox have been offering discovery through their apps for some time, and apps like Peel even offer some control capability when paired with the right hardware. But there are two things that stand out with Dish’s app, and they have a lot to do with what Dish brings to the table in the second screen space:

Dish’s second-screen app makes use of data from Trendrr and Thuutz.

First, Dish doesn’t have to rely on automated content recognition to find out what’s on TV, simply because Dish already knows what you’re watching. The company is running your set-top-box, after all. So no more ugly workarounds that require your tablet to listen to your TV’s audio, only to tell you with a notable delay what’s on TV.

Secondly, Dish is making some good use of third-party providers for some of the media and social smarts used in the app. The company is relying on sports data from Thuutz to tell viewers which of the currently airing games are the most exciting ones. And it’s making extensive use of data from Trendrr to gather social sentiment across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and others, which makes it possible to show which shows are “hot” on social networks. The reason for this is obvious: Dish doesn’t have to reinvent TV discovery services, because that’s not where the money is for the company. So it can rely on third parties to make its own product better.

Which brings up an interesting question: If an operator like Dish can build a second-screen app without any of the complicated hoops that some of its start-up competitors have to jump through, then why should consumers install a third-party app? Sure, some of the apps built by startups may look hipper and come with a few more bells and whistles, but really, will consumers care?

Or will they just go for what’s good enough, and sure to work with their in-home setup?

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I still think the idea of Google becoming a carrier is laughable (you can read why here), but it’s looking more and more likely that Google wants to put some skin in the mobile broadband game through strategic investment. In fact it’s already done so in the past, plopping down $500 million to fund Clearwire’s WiMAX ambitions. WiMAX didn’t exactly work out – it sold its Clearwire stake this year – so now Google may be setting its sites on LTE.

Dish is a satellite communications and TV provider with a hankering to become a terrestrial mobile operator. Over the last few years it’s scooped up a bunch of satellite communications licenses that it’s asking the Federal Communications Commission to clear for LTE use. Dish claims that wants to become a legitimate contender in the 4G market and is looking for partners to help it get its LTE network off the ground – or so it claims. Dish is just as likely to flip its spectrum for a quick profit once it gets the FCC to open up its spectrum.

Assuming for the moment that Dish is sincere, however, what would a partnership with Google bring it? Obviously money: Google has deep pockets and building a network 4G network from scratch is an expensive proposition, costing the companies well upwards of $10 billion. Ideally Dish would like to partner with an entrenched mobile carrier, one that already has the core and tower infrastructure in place to host its radio network as well as the back office and customer service operations to actually run a nationwide mobile carrier.

Google has the cash and Dish has the spectrum, but neither Google nor Dish bring expertise and infrastructure, which would put both at disadvantage. They would have to start from square one, replicating what the major wireless operators have spent more than a decade building. If that sounds like a huge disadvantage, that’s because it is.

But then again Google may be looking to start from scratch. Partnering with an established mobile operator, means embracing the traditional carrier business models of expensive mobile data tiers and long-term contracts as well as a mindset still grounded in protecting old-school voice and SMS services and their revenues. There’s a reason why Google invested in Clearwire. It wanted to challenge the traditional way of selling wireless services. It may now see the same opportunity with Dish.

Dish photo courtesy of (CC BY 2.0) Flickr user 

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An internet-only TV subscription with smaller, more customized bundles would be great news for cord cutters. However, one of the biggest issues that needs to be resolved seems to be the pricing. From the article:

“Dish wants to reach consumers around 18 to 28 who would rather pay $20 a month for a smaller package of channels to watch on computers or mobile devices, CEO Joseph Clayton said in an interview this month… Negotiations bog down because programmers aren’t willing to sell Dish the rights for a low enough price to make a service viable, he said.”

It makes sense that the price of any such offering would be a stumbling block. If it’s too low, Viacom won’t sign on. if it’s too high, consumers won’t bite. Of course, the question is: how much is too much? We figured we should ask our readers to find out.

Let’s assume, for now, that Dish would sell this type of internet-only offering with a much smaller bundle, which would mainly consist of Viacom channels. You’d pay $10, $20 or $30 a month in return get the ability to stream new episodes of the Daily Show, the Colbert Report and the MTV Music Awards live, when they air on traditional TV. How much would you pay for it? Please let us know by answering the poll below, and feel free to elaborate in the comments!

Want to learn more about watching TV without paying for cable? Then check out my book Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable.

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But a day later, during its own second quarter Come to Wall Street address, AMC Networks struck a contrarian tone: Not being in Dish’s 14 million homes since July 1 didn’t affect Q2 earnings, but Q3 will be a very different matter.

“Although Dish Network’s termination has reduced the company’s total subscribers by approximately 13 percent, the impact on our (cash flow) and operating income, if it continues, will be materially higher,” the company said in its Thursday earnings release.

Also read: Day 27 of the Dish vs. AMC standoff – where’s the subscriber revolt?

As for AMC’s second quarter performance, it wasn’t too shabby, with the company reporting a 53 percent spike in profit to $41.5 million on a 12.2 percent increase in revenue to $327.6 million.

Key revenue drivers remain ad sales and purchases of AMC’s critically lauded series, including Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Walking Dead on disc, download and streaming.

Relative to other cable conglomerates, AMC Networks gets a smaller portion of its revenue from pay TV affiliate fees — an amount that totals only around $418 million a year, according to a memo put out last week by Lazar Capital analyst Barton Crockett.

Also read: Why Breaking Bad didn’t scare Dish, but Walking Dead will

With shows like Walking Dead becoming mainstream audience hits — the zombie series’ second-season premiere scored the biggest audience ever for a basic cable series last October — AMC is  trying to significantly increase its carriage fees in renewal talks.

But the conglomerate, spun off from Cablevision last year, claims it never even got to plead its case with Dish before the satellite carrier pulled its AMC flagship channel, along with the smaller IFC and WE TV, off its service on June 30.

AMC still insists that Dish is trying to drum up leverage for a separate legal matter — Cablevision and AMC are suing Dish for $2.5 billion for dropping the now-defunct Voom HD channels in 2008. Dish was ruled to have destroyed evidence in the case, which goes to trial in September.

Also read: AMC – “Dish never even talked rates with us”

If this is indeed factoring into settlement negotiations, Dish is doing little to reveal any progress made.

On Wednesday, Dish co-founder and chairman Ergen ramped up the rhetoric as only he can. Turns out the Englewood, Co.-situated Ergen family isn’t a fan of AMC series, even though they’ll collectively be up for 34 Emmys next month.

“I’ve had satellite television for as long as satellite television has been around, and there’s never been one minute that I know of anybody in my family, or anybody who’s came to my house, has ever watched one second of any of those channels,” Ergen told investors Wednesday.

“They’re critically acclaimed but not viewed as much by our audience,” he added. “And our customers can go to iTunes and get ‘Mad Men’ the same time it’s on.”

Ergen also claimed that Dish could pay the entire bill for his subscribers’ purchases of AMC series on iTunes and still come out ahead of paying AMC’s increased licensing fee.

Of course, it’s still early August. Ergen’s position could change on or before Sept. 18, when the Voom HD trial begins; or on or around Sept. 23, if Mad Men and Breaking Bad clean up at the Emmys; or on Oct. 15, when Nielsen’s Fast National ratings appear for the third-season Walking Dead premiere the night earlier.

Then there’s Dish’s own Q3 earnings. In an SEC filing made several weeks ago, Dish revealed that it only lost 10,000 subscribers in the second quarter, beating analysts forecast. It will no doubt be interesting to see what the company’s subscriber churn is during the current quarter with AMC not around.

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Dish began distributing foreign-language content on Roku in May, and it wants to be the only one to do so.

The reason for this move? Roku struck a distribution agreement with Dish Network in May, which makes the satellite provider’s DishWorld service the exclusive distributor for foreign programming on the platform. Customers can use DishWorld to subscribe to packages of content from countries like India and Brazil, with streams delivered directly to their Roku boxes — no satellite subscription required.

Roku contacted developers affected by this about a month ago and told them the only way to remain on the service would be to strike a licensing agreement with Dish, which would put the TV provider in charge of distribution and billing of their content. Otherwise, they would have 90 days to transition their customers off the platform but wouldn’t be allowed to add any new customers during that time. A few edge cases, including companies that distribute only small amounts of foreign content, may be able to stay on Roku, but they will need Dish’s approval first. And some will be able to maintain their foreign-language content outside the U.S. and Canada.

A Roku spokesperson sent us the following comment via email:

“As DISH is the leader in international programming, by partnering with them we can leverage their expertise to grow our international and foreign language content under their expertise. For customers, this strategy allows us to maintain the best selection and highest quality of international and foreign language content.”

Limited choices, limited options

Mango Mobile TV has been distributing Indian movies and TV shows on Roku. The company is now looking to accelerate its smart-TV app development.

Predictably, the developers affected by the move don’t share that point of view. Some of them voiced their frustration in Roku’s developer forums.

I have talked with a few developers since Dave Zatz first reported about Roku’s move and also heard various complaints. Krishna Jonnakadla, the VP of marketing for Mango Mobile TV, told me his company is “deeply disappointed” by Roku’s move.

He went on to say,

“Instead of encouraging more people and content to get on to the platform, Roku has taken just the opposite decision. We believe customers are going to face limited choices and limited options. Customers may in fact see an increase in pricing due to the fact that Dish might have to tag on their margins to the aggregated content they will be bringing on to the platform. We don’t believe this will be a good move for Roku or their current customers.”

Mango Mobile TV has been distributing Indian movies and TV content on Roku, and Jonnakadla told me the company is now accelerating its development of apps for Samsung’s connected TVs and other smart-TV platforms in light of Roku’s decision. He also said his company tried to reach out to Dish several times about its presence on Roku but has never gotten any response. I have heard similar complaints from another developer, who described the situation as a “checkmate.”

The future of Roku: looking like a cable box?

There’s some irony in all of this: When Dish brought its DishWorld service to Roku, it seemed like the first step toward a virtual cable operator — a company that offers customers pay-TV bundles transmitted over the Internet without any physical infrastructure in place. There has been lots of talk within the industry about the possibility of such virtual TV offerings, with many hoping this would lead to cheaper and more flexible bundles and eventually more competition.

However, if TV providers are turning to the Internet to distribute their fare, they could also make online video look much more like traditional TV. Devices like Roku could end up looking much more like a traditional cable box — exclusive distribution agreements included.

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With the Pac-12 collegiate athletic conference set to launch a national cable TV network, along with six regional channels, on Aug. 15, satellite services DirecTV and Dish Network — the Nos. 2 and 3 pay TV operators in the U.S. — have yet to sign a deal to carry the new programmer.

Also read: Call it an upset? How DirecTV held its ground vs. Viacom

Telco-based distributors Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse also remain unsignd.

A representative for DirecTV, which just resolved a significant program licensing dispute with Viacom on Friday, said talks with Pac-12 Network officials are ongoing, but no announcement is expected until “closer to the school year.”

Also read: Why Breaking Bad didn’t scare Dish but Walking Dead will

Televising every Pac-12 college football and basketball game not already picked up under the conference’s licensing deals with Disney/ESPN and Fox’s regional sports operations, the Pac-12 Network has agreements in place to launch on Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Brighthouse, covering about 40 million U.S. homes.

Also read: Why aren’t more people cutting the cord? Regional sports networks

While they lack leverage in most program licensing negotiations, passing on sports is typically noteven an option for major pay TV carriers.

For example, come this fall in the Los Angeles region, if certain big USC and UCLA football games remain blacked out on DirecTV and Dish, these services could see subscribers aggressively switch over to Time Warner Cable, the only major carrier with a Pac-12 Network deal in that region.

But carriers like DirecTV and Dish are more intent than ever these days about holding the line on ever-increasing program licensing costs, and they don’t seem to be in any hurry to make deal.

The Pac-12 Network is going to launch with a flagship national channel, as well as six satellite channels serving six regions: Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Utah/Colorado.

Last month, DirecTV CEO Michael White told reporters that he had no interest in carrying all seven channels.

Certainly, White has other costs down the road to consider. Not only is the long-term popularity of the Pac-12 network unknown, but Time Warner Cable is about to launch its own regional sports  channels, cemented around a multi-billion deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.

As for the Pac-12, the model remains the Big 10 Network, which launched in August 2007 on only DirecTV and U-Verse, before its popularity pulled most other major pay TV carriers onboard.

The model to avoid? The Mountain West Conference’s channel, which never broke out beyond its DirecTV cariage and was ultimately scuttled.

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