Not So Quiet Week

You would expect that because it’s the week after a major holiday that the news would be in short supply, but luckily this week it’s not.

Rumors are buzzing that former Sling Media CEO and Co Founder Blake Krikorian could be heading to DirecTV as the new CEO replacing Chase Carey.

The rumor of this first buzzed over the weekend from paidcontent.org who reported the rumor.

Blake and his brother Jason created the ever-popular Slingbox and formed Sling Media, a copy that was sold off to Echostar in 2007 in a deal valued at $380 million. Blake left the company he founded earlier this year.

I personally would be excited if the news were true. Blake is a forward thinker and can grasp what’s coming in the future not just living for today. DirecTV needs someone at the help to push the company ahead technically and Blake could be that guy.

My only wondering is if he can take the job, it is a possibility he could have a non-compete clause in his contract with Echostar. It will be interesting to see how this one all plays out.

More HD This Week For Dish

Dish Network customers are scheduled to get another new High Definition national channel this week, as MSNBC HD is scheduled to be launched this Wednesday afternoon.

Originally MSNBC HD was supposed to launch last week on Dish but for some reason the rollout date was pushed back.

Dish seems to have most of the major HD channels that folks want now. The two channels I am hearing a lot of requests for at ESPN-U HD and The Outdoor Channel HD. Perhaps we will see those ones soon as well.

IPhone Apps

Today DirecTV released an updated version of its DirecTV iPhone application. The DirecTV iPhone application lets customers set DVR timers from anywhere using their iPhones.

This new version has better memory management, improved search folder display and had been updated to work with the new iPhone 3.0 operating system.

Speaking of iPhone applications the new Sirius XM application has quickly surpassed 1 million downloads. To me this is an amazing feat considering its only been available for two weeks.

The app lets Sirius XM subscribers listen to many of the channels from Sirius XM on their iPhones. And while the app is missing he Howard Stern show it seems to have interest from many iPhone owners.

Users who are now Sirius XM customers can use the app free for 7 days. My wondering is how many of the 1 million downloads are using the application once their trial period is up.

No matter what though this is great exposure for the satellite radio company, positive press is something this company really needs at the moment.