Business

Dish Networking

Charlie Ergen is weighing a move to offer live cable channels via the Web, likely under his Blockbuster brand name, The Post has learned.

Ergen, who runs satellite provider Dish Network Corp., is talking to program providers about their interest in supporting a service delivered exclusively via broadband and separate from authentication deals that give consumers online access to content with their Dish password, sources familiar with the plan said.

Existing authentication rights are limited to use in the home, and Ergen wants to give prospective subscribers mobility, the sources said.

Meanwhile, Dish Network said Monday that its third-quarter earnings rose 30 percent over the last year but came in slightly below forecasts. Dish lost 111,000 net subscribers during the quarter, putting its customer base at 13.9 million.

Englewood, Colo.-based Dish has already said its Blockbuster streaming service will grow from its current game plan of offering streaming to its 14 million subscribers into a national service open to Dish and non-Dish customers.

Ergen is already tipping his hand that he has hobbled Netflix in his site. Dish has been running an aggressive promotional campaign for its Blockbuster service via Twitter aimed at people mentioning Netflix in their posts.

The benefit to negotiating for broadband-only rights is that Dish would have the right to circumvent its tightly worded contracts for satellite-delivered programming and have more flexibility to offer smaller, lower-cost bundles moving it in the direction of a la carte.

To allow Dish to compete ably in the video streaming game, Ergen has acquired DBSD North America and Terrestar Networks. He bid for Hulu, but its owners decided to pull it off the market.

Dish isn’t the only company investigating the feasibility of Web-delivered live TV. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google is also discussing a beta-test in Kansas City, Kan., as video continues to grow its share of streaming traffic.

While Ergen will likely link his plan with other carriage negotiations, sources say Google would have to pay heavily to play in the Web-MSO space. Pay-TV firms collectively spend some $35 billion on content, according to Bernstein Research.

Competition for broadband content rights would likely be a boon for the big media companies that are now starting to report the fruits of digital distribution deals with the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.

James Ratcliffe, Barclays Capital analyst, is skeptical about progress: “As I understand it, programming contracts do not enable them to announce a dishless-Dish.” He noted that efforts to topple the current eco-system were “a little more science project than consumer offering.” That doesn’t mean they’re not concerned.

“There is a real concern among content, Internet service providers and pay-TV providers that over-the-top is really going to shake their world,” said Jimmy Schaeffler at the Carmel Group.

Last month, Ergen was part of a panel in Boulder, Co., where he stated an ambition to offer voice, video and data in both a fixed and mobile delivery system.

A Dish spokesman declined to comment.