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Feb. 11 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Tuesday approved a bid by T-Mobile to merge with competitor Sprint in a combination of the nation's third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers. Judge Victor Marrero of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled against 13 state attorneys general who sought to block the $26 billion deal as potentially harmful to consumers. They sued in June 2019, even before the merger was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. The companies argued their merger was needed to compete against the biggest wireless carriers, AT&T and Verizon, and to complete...

NEW YORK (AP) — A high-drama telecom deal is heading to court. T-Mobile, in its attempt to buy Sprint for $26.5 billion, has already notched approvals from key federal regulators. Now it must convince a federal judge that the 14 state attorneys general suing to stop the deal are wrong. A trial starts Monday in U.S. District Court in New York and is expected to last several weeks. If T-Mobile prevails, the number of major U.S. wireless companies would shrink to three from four. A combined T-Mobile-Sprint would become a fiercer competitor to larger Verizon and AT&T . But the...

Dish has just dropped Fox channels, including FS1, FS2, and BTN. Dish customers were quick to jump on social media to share the news that their Fox channels have gone dark as of this afternoon. Fox channels are also removed from Sling TV. Channels currently unavailable include FS1, FS2, Big 10 Network, Fox Soccer Plus and Fox Deportes. Fox. Local channels in 17 markets across 23 states have been affected. A full list of those markets can be found here.

Nearly 3 million Dish Network subscribers in 18 cities, including Los Angeles, have lost access to their local CBS television station — just two days before Thanksgiving, when many Americans want to watch NFL football. The blackout comes amid a contentious fee dispute between satellite TV provider Dish Network and CBS Corp., which owns the television stations. Customers in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco, Denver and other markets also were hit by the blackout, which in addition to the local stations includes three CBS cable channels: CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel and Pop. Dish has nearly 400,000...

Cancelled DishTV today. I have "cut the cord" on and off for many years, and it's time again. I was paying $60/month on a discount plan and it went up to $120 for the same programming. I'm just not getting that kind of benefit from the cable channels. On a personal level, I don't see the value. A recent article found that more than 1,000,000 [US] consumers cancelled paid TV subscriptions in 2015, according to SNL Kagan, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Last year's decline was four times greater than the losses of 2014, and it represents the...

U.S. satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp reported quarterly revenue below analysts' estimates as it lost more subscribers than expected in its core pay-TV business. The company lost 23,000 net pay-TV subscribers in the quarter, more than the analysts' average estimate of a loss of 13,100 customers.. ... Dish, which is grappling with subscriber losses like other pay-TV providers, has been increasing rates

The long reigning king of the desktop OS is in trouble. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, is rapidly steering the company into the back office and service spaces, while their nascent mobile and desktop platforms are crumbling around them. Microsoft is putting on a brave face continuing to heavily advertise the 2-in-1 Surface debacle, but Nadella is only buying time, as he must surely know that Apple and Google is the two-headed beast that Microsoft can not stop. In less than a decade, Microsoft will be associated with IBM or Oracle, not Apple or Google. Apple’s iOS is poised for...

FTVLive told you yesterday that Fox News and Dish Network had ended their retrans dispute and FNC has returned to the Dish bird. As we predicted, the terms of the new deal weren’t disclosed. However, people familiar with the talks said Dish is paying a significant increase for Fox News, which is one of the most popular networks, not just among news channels but entertainment and sports services as well. According to research firm SNL Kagan, the average monthly fee for Fox News is currently about $1.00 per subscriber. Under terms of the new pact, the price Dish would pay...

Dish Network recognizes that people, especially millennials, aren't subscribing to pay TV and they're hoping to make that segment of consumers new customers with the introduction of Sling TV, an over-the-top service that costs $20 a month with no contract beyond a month-to-month commitment. Dish announced Sling TV, which has no direct connection with Slingbox or Sling Media (although both have a link to EchoStar, the parent of Disney Network), at CES on Monday, when CEO Joe Clayton introduced it as "a brand for this consumer segment" that "offers our new customers programming that is tailored to their wants and...

21st Century Fox and Dish pointed the finger at each other tonight as carriage talks between the two failed to produce a deal by midnight, resulting in Fox News Channel and Fox Business Channel no longer being available on Dish. Both sides blamed the other for the shutdowns. “It is disappointing that, after nearly two decades without a blackout, Fox News Channel has been blocked by Dish Network,” Tim Carry, EVP Distribution at Fox News Channel said late tonight. “We care deeply about our viewers and hope that they will regain access to the number one cable news channel soon....

Currently, Dish Network's 14 million subscribers do not have access to CNN or other Turner Broadcasting channels like the Cartoon Network. Speaking specifically of CNN, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen ridiculed the left-wing cable news network's obsessive coverage of the missing Malaysian airliner and said losing the channel was a "non-event." "Twenty years ago, CNN was a must-have channel, but it's not a top 10 network anymore ... unless they find the plane, the Malaysian plane," Ergen said during a conference call. He added that losing CNN just days before a major midterm election would have been "a disaster" for Dish...

TV provider, Dish Network has been ordered by a federal judge to pay $22,500 to a West Virginia man after it made 31 calls to his cell phone to pestering him to pay an overdue bill. It turns out the man, Chester Moore, was never a Dish customer and didn’t owe the Charlie Ergen-controlled satellite-TV outfit a dime. Plus, Moore had alerted a Dish representative on two occasions of the screw-up. On both occasions, Dish’s reps assured Moore the calls would stop. But the calls — made by an automatic telephone dialing system — kept coming.

A day after a surprise US supreme court decision to outlaw streaming TV service Aereo, US broadcaster Fox has moved to use the ruling to clamp down on another internet TV service. Fox has cited Wednesday’s ruling – which found Aereo to be operating illegally – to bolster its claim against a service offered by Dish, America’s third largest pay TV service, which streams live TV programming over the internet to its subscribers and allows them to copy programmes onto tablet computers for viewing outside the home. The move has fueled criticism of Wednesday’s ruling from groups that have argued...

Dish Network said on Wednesday it will close all 300 or so retail locations of the Blockbuster video rental chain by January, closing a chapter on a brand that failed to compete in the digital world. Dish plans to lay off as many as 2,800 employees. Dish, the second-largest U.S. satellite TV company, bought the failed Blockbuster LLC video rental chain in a bankruptcy auction in 2011 for $320 million, a dramatic fall for a brand that at its peak in 2002 had a market value of $5 billion.

Al Jazeera America begins broadcasting Tuesday but will only be available in about 50 million homes. A link on the network’s website allows users to search whether the channel is available in their neighborhood, and provides a form letter for potential customers to request it from their TV providers.

Just got a call from Dish, internet only in my rural area for 50 bucks a month and a 50 buck install fee, no tv (I don't watch that stuff mostly). My Sprint Aircard costs me 75 or better and is unreliable. Thoughts? Not a promo, just flat 50 for the rest of my life. Hmmm... Better than Hughesnet? and the others? Inquiring.....

With Glenn going to DISH network, what are the chances of 2016 being shown on this channel with its greater viewing audience before the Election?How about on Netflicks?A penny for your thoughts Freepers...

Glenn Beck is bringing his brand of conservative commentary back to the television set. One year after embracing an Internet-only distribution model, Mr. Beck is repositioning his streaming network, TheBlaze TV, as an offering for cable and satellite operators — in other words, TV the old-fashioned way.

Dish CEO Joe Clayton raised eyebrows yesterday when he said the satellite TV service is "open" to being purchased by another company. "We're open to all possible options," Clayton told Bloomberg News after being asked about possible merger plans. "We could be acquired or we could be the acquirer." Clayton, who was interviewed at the Consumer Electronics Show, did say the company would be "open" to those options after it finished 'building out' its wireless spectrum and entertainment businesses. There has been speculation that Dish might be interested in buying T-Mobile. Clayton, a long-time executive in the satellite and TV...

Anyone experiencing outage on their Dish Network?