Many have been wondering just exactly what Dish Network would do with Blockbuster after it won an auction for the bankrupt video-store chain in April. Heck, even now-outgoing CEO Charlie Ergen was cryptic about Dish’s plan during an analyst conference call earlier this month, evading questions and saying plans will roll out like an episode of Seinfeld: “You’ll have to wait (for the last two minutes) to see how it all comes together.” OK, so today came the cold open: Dish announced that it will offer the Blockbuster By Mail service free for three months to new Dish Network satellite TV customers. The DVD-by-mail service, which was started by Blockbuster to fight then-upstart Netflix, offers unlimited access to more than 100,000 movies, TV shows and games — and new titles 28 days before Netflix or Redbox. The service also allows customers to return DVDs to Blockbuster stores (insert joke here about finding one that’s not boarded up) rather than via U.S. Mail. “Dish Network now offers more than twice as many movie choices as any other TV provider,” said Ira Bahr, Dish’s Chief Marketing Officer. ”If you love movies, you’re going to love Dish Network.


Wow, so the strategy that didn’t help Blockbuster at all against Netflix is now going to be used to make Dish Network attractive? Great Scott, that’s so reverse-logical that it Just Might Work! Ignore Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” that’s so popular, it’s the largest bandwidth consumer on the Internet at peak hours, folks! Instead, wait two to three days to watch that episode of Cheers!
So who’s going to buy Dish Network in three years when the bottom finally falls out of the cable tv market.
Netflix is going to destroy two birds with one stone on this one.
Why only new customers get the 3 months free mail service? Why not current ones? Seems a mistake to me. If Dish is smart they offer it to all and then also expand Blockbuster’s Kiosks and letting you return movies there too. Then as they do that expand Blockbuster On-Demand to include as many movies and shows as they possibly can. Do both. Lower the rental prices too.
I’d also add maybe as part of your Dish Network subscription Blockbuster On Demand is free. That’d really hurt Netflix. If they can’t make it free for whatever reasons then maybe say $5 a month to under cut Netflix’s price. For non Dish Customers maybe offer the $5 price or slightly higher but lower then Netflix. I’d also offer Blockbuster On Demand as a $1 per movie for folks who don’t watch movies all that often and compete with Redbox too.
Blockbuster/Dish doesn’t own the kiosks, NCR does, they licence the Blockbuster name.
Let me understand this. There is a whole world of content viewers- some have cable- some have satellite- some have netflix- some have internet. For those NEW subscribers to DISH network- 3 free months of Blockbuster content by mail? Who thought this up? Not a marketing genius. What would have been better is to give a year free to new subscribers, six months free to current Dish Subscribers, and 3 months free for new members without any strings attached. Sometimes you have to wonder who is behind all these genius marketing ploys?
But for the record, I love the VW Pinata commercial. That is true genius.
JZ
Dish, I laugh at your puny attempts to keep up with me.
to be fair, i don’t even think dish has decided yet on which stores they are even keeping yet. There’s still a long way to go for them to really make any huge changes.
Also don’t forget that Dish bought Blockbuster for peanuts. Dish could liquidate everything today and still recover almost all the money they invested.
This article is a non-event in my book. Neither good or bad. Ask me again in a year or two and maybe there will be something to really criticize about Dish’s purchase.
Sign up for DishNetwork and get a free blockbuster store.
While supplies last.
They boarded up all the Blockbuster stores around me. As of this writing (since it changes on a weekly basis), the next closest store location is 45 miles away. Good luck with that!
This is a great idea… not sure how many executives it took to think of it ?
What??? and just how is that going to help us in Canada out? We have Blockbuster videos which is bankrupt/closing but DISH network is only in the U.S.A.! Kinda of sucks for us!!