‘DishOnline’ Goes Live

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 9/6/2010 12:01:00 AM

Englewood, Colo. — Dish Network is offering subscribers access to more than 150,000 video clips, full-length episodes and movies through DishOnline.com, the portal for “TV Everywhere” content and other services that launched publicly on Aug. 24.

Programming partners initially participating in DishOnline. com include Discovery Communications, Scripps Networks, Viacom’s MTV and Nickelodeon, Epix, Starz Entertainment, Ovation and Encore.

“It’s an ongoing process of adding more networks,” Bruce Eisen, Dish’s vice president of online content development and strategy, said. “When a Dish customer pays us for content, they should be able to watch it wherever they are and whenever they want.”

Like other pay TV operators pursuing a “TV Everywhere” strategy, Dish is aiming to keep subscribers paying for video services by extending access to TV content across mobile and Web screens. Comcast, Verizon Communications’ FiOS TV and AT&T’s U-Verse TV have launched their own fl avors of TV Everywhere.

DishOnline.com has been in a private beta test with a few thousand users for the past several months.

Of the 150,000-plus pieces of video content on the site at launch, about half are free to anyone to access, according to Eisen. “It’s a customer-acquisition tool,” he said. “I’m hoping Cablevision and Comcast customers come to the site and say, ‘Look at all this other great stuff Dish offers.’”

In addition to video, Dish customers who log in to the site can remotely manage their broadband-connected DVRs to set or delete recordings, as well as browse and search TV listings and 5,000 on-demand titles. DishOnline.com also lets subscribers with a ViP 922 “Sling- Loaded” DVR or Slingbox watch live or recorded TV programs.

The site delivers video using Adobe Systems’ Flash multimedia platform and uses Widevine Technologies’ security and adaptive-streaming technology. Dish and EchoStar built the entire content-management system and the software to manage DVRs.

Currently, Dish is not selling ads for DishOnline.com but “at some point we’ll look at that,” Eisen said.

Dish filed to trademark the term “TV Everywhere” in September 2009, but last month the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office suspended the application. The agency cited Time Warner Inc.’s prior application to trademark “On Demand Everywhere” as potentially nullifying the satellite operator’s claim on the term.