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Charlie Ergen: Dish’s Blockbuster Didn’t Have “Guts” To Challenge Netflix


You may be right. Just read an article where they just closed another Blockbuster in our area. That leaves one left in the entire NE Pennsylvania(according to online news article).
 
juan said:
he doesnt want to spend any money
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And that is good in this case. Netflix has been building their brand for 15 years, in all you can eat streaming for 5+ years. Then you have Amazon with its Prime account ties in to streaming, books, shipping and its own devices. DISH would have to had to invest huge amounts of capitol to just break in with a splash and then huge amounts to stay in with small chance of success.

Dish's mistake was every spending/wasting a even a dime buying Blockbuster.
 
They paid $332 million, right? They have a lot of bb@home customers at $10 a pop plus all the brick and mortar customers and the publicity they received. That is a small price compared to a billion and a third for the wireless spectrum. I think the BB acquisition was smart.
 

You make an interesting point. It reminds me a bit of "The Men Who Built America" that I recently caught a few of in a rerun on History Channel. It seemed that the point of the series that men like Vandervilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, JP Morgan et al, were nothing more than evil capitalist juggernauts that trampled unrestrained everything and everyone in their way and used people and resources to their own gain which resulted in the building of railroads, roads, modern cities and the spread of electricity throughout the country. These men abused workers, used the system and paid off politicians and got rid of anyone that stood in their way until Theodore Roosevelt finally came along and sued them for antitrust and broke them up. Ultimately at the end of the series the point is made that as a result of these evil capitalists America was built into the superpower that was needed to fight WW I. Most of this is probably somewhere close to the truth, but now we're 180 degrees from that where government decides who wins and who loses in business by regulations. I'd like to think there could have been some better alternative to the way it was back then than the way it is now.
 
Mochuf said:
My local store was totally redone including a H/J system and it's closing down. This chain is doomed.
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My local BB was spruced up a bit a while back with Hopper/Joey display hope it stays open for a while, from another standpoint it's a a anchor store in a plaza that doesn't have much left in it. Maybe that will help in there future leases?
 
Dish didn't buy blockbuster for their content, as they could have gone out and worked deals for content with the networks that they already have agreements with.

The Blockbuster name was really what Dish was after, due to the fact that it was widely recognized.

Where I believe they screwed things up is that they did not invest in an easy to use customer interface for both the streaming content and the DVD by mail service.

In my opinion the streaming service was useless to me when I had it simply because it was very difficult to find anything worth watching.

As far as the DVD service, everything I wanted to get was out of stock, and has long wait times.

Streaming is where the future is, the DVD by mail service is only good for the people who do not have a reliable Internet connection.

The way I look at it is like the VHS vs BETA days. Everything is going to VHS, and here we have Charlie trying to re-invent the Beta Max.

The only issue with the Blockbuster name is that the longer things go this way with the stores closing, and the crappy streaming service, the less people are going to see blockbuster as a name they trust.
 

Another way you can tell that the Blockbuster acquisition was going no where is when they closed a store they didn't use the stores DVDs/Blurays/Games (the big one) to increase inventories at their by mail warehouses. They could have easily transferred DVDs from corporate locations or offered to buy inventories from franchisees when locations started closing.
 
Our only BB store was run by a Dish installer who did a lot of TV advertising. It was closed down. The firm is now advertising Directtv and doing negative Dish spots( no 3D channels, no locals in HD, no NFL package, no 5 tuner DVR, no 24 hour RSN,no FOX, no CW, no MYTV, no Texas Tech Basketball, etc.).
 
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Don't overlook that Charlie is referring to Blockbuster in the PAST-TENSE. When someone like Charlie uses past-tense, it is indeed history.
 
Claude Greiner said:
So basically blockbuster failed because they didnt want to spend the money on the content.
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It failed because the FCC took too long to decide technical issues that forced Dish to abandon is plan to enter the wireless phone service. He bought Blockbuster for retail outlets to sell his now dead wireless plans. BB as a competitor to Netflix & Amazon was a far far down the list #2 plan.

On the bright side, if one can see one, is that BB was bought with chump change and at a truly closeout price. It will not affect Dish's financials in any significant lasting way. This is the risk all companies take and even the biggest and best companies make mistakes or bury things only to have a plan not materialize. Ergan has said in interviews that Dish has made mistakes. BTW, Dish lost over $2 hundred million on it investment in Starband, remember that company? And that was back when Dish had a lot less money to make mistakes. Dish took their losses with Starband and moved on. I think the same will happen with BB: they have the name, but since the FCC took its sweet time KNOWING it would finish Dish's entry into the wireless market (could the big wireless companies have influenced the FCC in some way so as to insure the outcome they wanted? That would not surprise me.), Dish is going to move on. Dish is still a smaller company and such a HUGE financial subsidy and surly higher cost for programming with Netfilx and Amazon outbidding or just causing higher programming costs, Dish would've been ready for the banks to take possession. Charlie was RIGHT NOT to take that risk with a very high likelihood failure.
 
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.....Streaming is where the future is, the DVD by mail service is only good for the people who do not have a reliable Internet connection....
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I disagree, and point out that optical media is much better for "trick plays" such as FF Search, skip back, etc. And certainly BDs have higher PQ and AQ than any streaming I've done.
 
Yep. I'm in SG-1 season 4 disc 4 now. Never thought I'd use that disc by mail, but boy, do I value it now. Gotta justify what I paid for that OPPO, you know.

BTW, that OPPO is worth every penny. Especially when I listen to an SACD or DVD-A.
 
The fact is that DVD/BD discs will die, and be replaced by streaming. That is a given.

But, I hate it when people talk about it as if it's dead now. It is not. It has a few years left due to the huge user base.

I find it's mostly 20 and 30-something idiots with iphones, wearing stupid hats and footwear who make these statements. They are the same people who seem to think watching TV and movies on phones and tablets is better than on a 65" plasma. Idiots.
 
GaryPen said:
I find it's mostly 20 and 30-something idiots with iphones, wearing stupid hats and footwear who make these statements.
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So what were you wearing back in the 70'-80's?
 

Kids these days, I swear...

Sent from my iPhone 4S using Forum Runner
 
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