Random Thoughts

The big buzz this week was supposed to be on DIRECTV, however Echostar ended up stealing the spotlight from DIRECTV for most of the week.

The first big announcement out of Echostar was their announcement that they are buying Sling Media.  While the idea of having the Slingbox equipment built into their satellite receivers is an exciting one, many (myself included) are worried that Echostar’s ownership could curb many of the great ideas and products coming from Sling Media.

The next announcement was that Echostar was thinking about splitting the company into two separate companies. As I mentioned in my Wednesday edition of “The Satellite Dish” this signals to me that the “for sale” sign is out for Dish Network.

Which takes us to the next bit of news for the week, and that news is that it appears that AT&T wants to buy DISH Network.   Online reports even went as far as speculating that AT&T would pay up to $56 a share for the TV service.

I personally think that it is premature to talk of an AT&T buyout at this point in time.  

If I was Echostar CEO Charlie Ergen, I would hold off for now, and work on splitting the company and spin Dish Network off as it’s own company, a company which would get its equipment, uplink services and satellite space from Echostar. After this spin off was complete I would then sell off DISH Network to whoever wants to buy it. The new owners would then take over the day-to-day operations of DISH Network; it would be a complete turnkey deal for them.

My only concern in this scenario is if this deal took place what would happen to the independent satellite retailer and the independent installers out there. If a company like AT&T purchased Dish, would AT&T stop using these retailers and installers and do everything themselves? The independent retailer has been the backbone to both DISH Network and DIRECTV, without these folks neither company would be where they are at today.

As rumors of this deal continue to fly, there is one thing I agree with and that is a number of sites are reporting, it’s not a matter of “if” it will happen. The question is now “when”.

I have spent the last few days watching and enjoying the new HD channels on DIRECTV. The quality of the new HD channels is some of the best HD I have seen from any provider in a long time.

The channel that has impressed me the most has been Smithsonian Channel HD, this channel is pure eye candy which is well produced and educational. I find myself having a hard time turning away from this channel. If there is one channel that you can tune to at anytime to show your friends your HD setup, this would be the channel to tune to. It is my opinion that the Smithsonian Channel HD is these best HD on TV today.

I got to admit I was surprised by one channel that I thought would be a waste of HD channel space, and that channel is CNN HD. While much of the programming is not in HD, that which is in HD is done well and looks good. In addition the HD graphics are a welcome upgrade.

The most disappointing channel that has been launched in HD so far on DIRECTV has to be TBS HD, which has not shown a single program in HD yet. In addition to make matters worse all of the standard definition programming is stretched from it’s native 4×3 format to fit a 16×9 wide screen HDTV. Yes TBS HD will soon have the baseball playoffs in HD, but after that no one knows what if anything will be shown in HD on TBS HD.

Have a great weekend!