Dish To Merge With Voom Or Buy Out Voom?

[rickbb]

Since January 2004 word on the street is that Dish Network and Voom will Merge.Charlie Ergen-head of Dish was seen at Voom's Corporate headquarters several times back in January 2004.Also rumor is that Dish might buy Voom.
Does anyone here have an Update about what's going on with Dish and Voom joining forces?
Dish and Voom have direction in the sky that their satellites face.
Dish is seriously Looking to expand their HD.Especially now since Directv is sending up a new Satellite into the sky in 2005 that will be able to get 500 HD channels.
Competition is heavy.
Voom has a small following..its not the hit Vooms company expected. Dish should merge or buy it.

 

[bcshields]

They've been tight lipped, but there is tons of evidence, both circumstantial and marketable... which is leading towards some kind of Voom/Dish shindig.

Publicly they've announced nothing. Won't expect it until the deed has been done.

 

[Cyclone]

Shhhh,

We are not allowed to talk about Voom/Dish until INHD gets carried by Voom.

 

[bdemz]

Makes sense??

I am an HD guy and would love it but I can't see it happening. Why would E* invest alot of money by buying Voom. It's been repeated over and over that VOOM content is week (exclusive channels).

I think Charlie has stated with actions that he is more interested in international channels and locals since they add subscribers. HD does not add subs. In all financial statements they release sub number increases. I don't think they post numbers of service upgraders to HD services.

Would he buy VOOM for content or sat. space?

What about receivers? They can't even decide on what their own HD reciever look and feel like.

 

[bcshields]

They have a tasty new satellite and E* is strapped for space.

 

[mwgiii]

I agree with bcshields.

My crystal ball says Dish will buy VOOM before the spin-off for the satellite and transponder space. Dish will then license the VOOM HD content and broadcast it from 61.5 & 148 and will move the wing locals to the new 105 sat.

That way Charlie can be the true HD leader.

 

[mike123abc]

VOOM only has 3 things that Dish could want:

1. A satellite in space with spot beam capacity. This may be useful to Dish since it was supposed to have been designed with stearable spots so it could move in orbit to a new location and have the beams come down to the correct locations, instead of pointing over the ocean. But, then again now Dish has E10 almost finished in construction, do they need this extra capacity?

One has to consider where they could use it and what they could do with it, 119/110 are pretty much full now, moving national capacity off of 119/110 for spots (beyond the already planned E10) may not be useful. Do the spots have enough capacity for LIL HD? If the spots did not have the capacity for LIL HD, it severly lowers the value of the satellite. How much would Echostar pay for an E3 replacement?

2. The second asset of VOOM would be the 11 Transponder frequencies they have licensed. These would be a nice addition. But, how long would it take for the FCC to approve the license transfer? This is really a small amount of capacity considering the sheer number of satellite slots Echostar is working on at the moment.

3. The orginal programming. VOOM does not seem to be attracting a lot of customers with it.

With each passing day it is harder and harder to see why Echostar would buy VOOM. This is probably the problem, if Echostar made an offer to buy VOOM already they probably just offered the price of the satellite plus a small sum for the orbital slots (probably 0 value on 166/175 since they are too far west for E* to really use). The offer was probably so low that VOOM did not want it. Cablevision is going to spin it off to get rid of it, who knows if they will be able to sell it.

 

[Cyclone]

Off the top of my head I can think of:

1. Dish already has thousands of Dishes (a lot of them from orig HD customers) already pointing at 61.5.
2. Instant addition of new HD channels for a $25/$30/mo Voom package fee.
3. Access to Voom's new high tech PVR.
4. Free season tickets for Charlie from all of Dolan's sports interests.
5. Quick and easy access to existing carriage agreements that Voom has for channels that Dish does not (and hopefully that would include INHD & INHD2 ).
6. A nice shiney new satellite thats hardly been used.

 

[keno]

It's been repeated over and over that VOOM content is week (sic)(exclusive channels).

Definitely, just your opinion. Voom has wonderful exclusive HD Channels. I watch Equator HD all the time. Equator has fantastic programming and much bettter the Discovery HD. My kids watch Animania HD, and enjoy Monsters HD, World Sports HD, and Rave HD. Then, the exclusive movie channels do offer great classic movies. You have to like the classic movies, though. I dropped Dish because there was no compelling HD on Dish. With Voom and my cable company, I now receive over 50 HD channels. Very happy camper.

 

[Bruce]

They have been meeting a lot lately due to them both owning a lot of MVDSS spectrum,DTV-Norwich(Dolan) and South.Com(Charlie),both companies went on a trip together to Europe(France,I think) to see how they use the spectrum.

 

[rickbb]

SUPER Responses! Thankyou So Much For Your Opinions And Information !

I found out so much from the answers all of you gave me here about a very possible Dish and Voom Merger.It now seems VERY predictable that it WILL happen.But WHEN?

 

[BFG]

Tick Tock, Tick Tock....

 

[GaryPen]

Dish fall down go Voom.

 

[long_time_DNC]

The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to have more HD content without going back to cable to get it.

 

[skidog]

I wish they would buy VOOM already, the only reason I did'nt go with VOOM was because they did'nt have sci-fi which I watch alot. Now they have sci-fi but I'm not going to switch till I know what's going on for sure.

 

[Mark_AR]

Well I'm just waiting around to see what happens. I'll jump when I see 'TRUE HD CONTENT' and not upconverted SD.

If it weren't for HDNET and Discovery HD, I wouldn't even bother with HD.

HBO/SHO/ESPN do show some good HD program content from time to time.

Whichever way it goes....
Dish+Voom=DOOM???

(I couldn't resist...)

 

[BFG]

:haha

LOL!!!!!

 

[rocatman]

VOOM only has 3 things that Dish could want:

1. A satellite in space with spot beam capacity. This may be useful to Dish since it was supposed to have been designed with stearable spots so it could move in orbit to a new location and have the beams come down to the correct locations, instead of pointing over the ocean. But, then again now Dish has E10 almost finished in construction, do they need this extra capacity?

One has to consider where they could use it and what they could do with it, 119/110 are pretty much full now, moving national capacity off of 119/110 for spots (beyond the already planned E10) may not be useful. Do the spots have enough capacity for LIL HD? If the spots did not have the capacity for LIL HD, it severly lowers the value of the satellite. How much would Echostar pay for an E3 replacement?

2. The second asset of VOOM would be the 11 Transponder frequencies they have licensed. These would be a nice addition. But, how long would it take for the FCC to approve the license transfer? This is really a small amount of capacity considering the sheer number of satellite slots Echostar is working on at the moment.

3. The orginal programming. VOOM does not seem to be attracting a lot of customers with it.

With each passing day it is harder and harder to see why Echostar would buy VOOM. This is probably the problem, if Echostar made an offer to buy VOOM already they probably just offered the price of the satellite plus a small sum for the orbital slots (probably 0 value on 166/175 since they are too far west for E* to really use). The offer was probably so low that VOOM did not want it. Cablevision is going to spin it off to get rid of it, who knows if they will be able to sell it.

I have not seen mentioned previously that the spotbeams on the Rainbow-1 satellite were steerable so I was wondering if there is a link to info or a discussion about this. I have read where the TPs on Rainbow-1 were configurable between CONUS and the spotbeams. Now if the spotbeams were steerable, Dish could move the satellite to 110 and use the 3 CONUS TPs for spotbeams that currently carry non-distant net locals. The Rainbow-1 spotbeams would have to provide the locals to the markets on these 3 CONUS TPs but Dish could also use some of the current 110 spotbeam TPs on Rainbow-1 for additional locals including the wing locals which would solve the single dish for locals problem. I could not imagine that the FCC would have a problem with Dish using these TPs since they are already licensed to Dish. If this were to happen, Dish could have E-10 re-designed perhaps for another slot such as 61.5, 105.5 or 123.5 and design its spotbeams specifically for HD locals.

There are other assets that Dish would want from Voom. This includes an uplink facility and access to the movie libraries that include HD movies. Another ironic twist would be the networks that are to be part of the Voom spinoff that include some regional sports networks that are owned in part by Fox/NewsCorp/DirecTV.

 

[Cyclone]

Whichever way it goes....
Dish+Voom=DOOM???

(I couldn't resist...)

hahahahhahah

 

[formerx]

Or the Celestial Diety Vishdoom