Report: Dish Looking at OTT Service
27 Sep, 2012 By: Chris TribbeyDish Network reportedly is in talks with Viacom, Univision, Scripps Networks Interactive and others about offering an Internet-based over-the-top service, according to a report from Bloomberg.
If true, it would mark a significant change in the pay-TV landscape, giving consumers a cheaper content option that doesn’t include hundreds of channels they may never watch.
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported the service would not include sports programming, but would allow Dish to break out of its satellite-TV model and get smaller bundles of content at a much cheaper price.
Dish likely won’t be able to woo separate Internet rights from the major broadcast networks (ABC, Fox, CBS and NBC), the sources told the news service.
If Dish were to reach an online-only agreement with content owners, it could leverage its Blockbuster streaming service for the content. Dish acquired Blockbuster in April 2011 for $320 million and launched its Blockbuster Movie Pass streaming service later that year.
A Dish representative declined comment.