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April 15, 2005
EchoStar Communications Corp., the second-largest U.S. satellite-television broadcaster in the name Dish Network, is offering a discount in the New York area to attract some of Time Warner Cable's 2.4 million customers who can't get Mets baseball games because of a pricing dispute with Cablevision Systems Corp.
New customers may subscribe to EchoStar's Dish Network satellite-TV service for .99 a month, cheaper than the standard rate, with an added a month to get Fox Sports New York and Madison Square Garden Network, the two Cablevision-owned sports channels currently not shown on Time Warner Cable.
"We expect this to drive subscriber growth in an area where fans are unhappy," EchoStar spokesman Steve Caulk said yesterday in a telephone interview. "We see this as a good opportunity to make cable customers aware how bad their situation is."
EchoStar will offer the discounted price through June 30, and the rate will apply to the first year of a new subscription. The Englewood, Colo. company has more than 11 million customers nationwide, but it won't disclose how many subscribers it has in the New York area.
"This is the most aggressive pricing we've seen from them," said Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., a research and investment firm in New York. "This is an opportunity that fell into EchoStar's lap since it comes at a time when cable operators have been winning back subs [subscribers] from satellite."
Dish Network doesn't carry the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network, which runs Yankees games and costs an extra fee on the cable systems that carry it. YES began carrying the Yankees in 2002.
Shares of EchoStar fell 53 cents to .73 and shares of Time Warner, the world's largest media company, fell 17 cents to .61 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Cablevision fell 42 cents to .69.
Time Warner Cable and Cablevision have been unable to settle their pricing dispute that has kept the two sports channels off Time Warner Cable in the area since March 8.
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