Word: echostar
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...programming--sumo wrestling from Japan, I bet, or The Larry Sanders Show reruns--while I was stuck with $50-a-month basic cable plus HBO and no pay-per-view. Last week, I'm delighted to say, I found an excuse to get my own direct-broadcast satellite TV. EchoStar, the second-largest DBS provider in the U.S., has just rolled out a promising new product called the DISHPlayer, a satellite receiver with an integrated WebTV that lets you surf the Net, send e-mail, play video games and watch more TV shows than there are hours...
According to EchoStar, the DISHPlayer will evolve over time without your having to go out and buy a new one. The company uses the satellite to update the deck's software automatically. In the fall, for instance, it will turn all those DISHPlayers into digital VCRs, so that instead of just pausing shows, users will be able to store stuff for later playback. By the end of the year, an upgrade will turn the player into a jukebox, so that CD-quality music that's currently beamed down in real time can be stored for playing later over your stereo...
...would also help compensate for a big Murdoch deal that seems to be falling apart: his joint venture with EchoStar to create a new satellite TV service called Sky. The service, announced with much fanfare in February, would beam 500 channels of digital programming to small home dishes. Because Murdoch's service would have the ability to deliver local over-the-air stations (which other satellite services cannot do), Sky could take significant numbers of customers away from cable. The prospect so alarmed rival media companies that they flooded Washington with lobbyists to try to stop Murdoch on regulatory grounds...
...while the lobbyists were making their rounds, EchoStar executives abruptly announced that negotiations with Murdoch had stalled, stymied by the media mogul's insistence that EchoStar switch to a Murdoch-approved descrambling technology. Some industry observers contend the technology issue is only a smoke screen for other problems faced by the venture. The deal was thrown further into doubt late last week when Preston Padden, Murdoch's top satellite executive, resigned, reportedly after clashing with EchoStar chairman Charles Ergen over control of the venture. "The EchoStar deal left me without a real job," Padden told TIME. "I have nothing...
Murdoch is already looking for alternatives to the EchoStar deal. He has held exploratory talks about gaining a share of Primestar, a competing satellite venture owned jointly by several cable companies, including TCI and Time Warner. Last week Murdoch broached the subject in a phone call to Time Warner's vice chairman, Ted Turner (with whom he has been feuding publicly), and had a face-to-face meeting with chairman Gerald Levin. His overtures to link up with Primestar, however, were rebuffed...