Posts Tagged ‘streaming’

A Stream Come True?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011


Say it ain’t so, Joe.

DISH Network’s Blockbuster brand will unveil a streaming service on Friday, via the Denver Business Journal…

CEO Joe Clayton and Blockbuster President Michael Kelly are scheduled to unveil the service from San Francisco in a press conference dubbed “A Stream Come True” (held via Ustream web streaming service, appropriately enough).

Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH), which rarely underplays a promotional opportunity, promises the service will be “the most comprehensive entertainment package ever!”

In addition to having the webstreaming technology that Blockbuster used, Dish Network has been rumored to be bidding for the online video service Hulu.

Whatever the outlines of the new Dishbuster service, it’s likely to salt Netflix’s recent wounds.

Shortly after buying Blockbuster, Ergen said the purchase wasn’t meant to knock Netflix from the top spot in movie-streaming, because Netflix likely had an insurmountable subscriber lead.

Last week, though, Netflix forecast actually losing subscribers this quarter, and falling 1 million short of its third-quarter projections.

On Monday, the 24 million-subscriber company surprised observers and sent its stock price lower by announcing it’s splitting the company — Netflix will focus exclusively on online movie streaming, and a new wholly owned subsidiary, called Qwikster, will carry on Neflix’s legacy business of shipping DVDs to subscribers by mail.