The low-priced leader in the U.S. pay TV industry, DISH Network Corporation(DISH) recently announced its partnership with EPIX, a premium video-on-demand service provider in the U.S. As per the deal, DISH subscribers will be allowed to access unlimited online movies and other programmes of EPIX through DISHOnline.com. But customers who have not subscribed for EPIX’s on-demand movie services will be deprived of this facility.
EPIX is a joint venture among Viacom’s (VIA) subsidiary, Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate (LGF) and MGM. They provide more than 3000 online movies (including hits like“Star Trek,” “The Last Airbender,” “Iron Man 2”, “Shutter Island” ) and TV shows to DISH customers, who have subscribed for EPIX online plan, and also to DISH Platinum customers at no extra cost.
DISH subscribers can easily visit the EPIX site by simply using their DISH Network login id account. Apart from watching movies, subscribers can also enjoy many other added features such as behind-the-scenes footage, movie extras. Moreover, they can even invite up to four friends anywhere to watch movies while they chat online.
The demand for online movies is expected to increase with the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones. Now people can watch movies and their favorite TV shows anytime and anywhere through these extended services. Hence, the company is upgrading their service quality by teaming up with EPIX as well as increasing their HD channel line up. Going forward, we expect to witness many such ventures in order to compete with cheap online movie service providers like HULU and Youtube as well as big telecom players like Verizon’s (VZ) Fios TV and AT&T’s (T) U-verse Online.
Moreover, customer churn rate for DISH Network increased significantly during the recent period resulting in 156,000 video subscriber losses, which also remains a matter concern for the comapny. This indicates that the company always needs to upgrade themselves in order to retain their market share.
We, thus, maintain our long-term Neutral recommendation for DISH Network Corporation. Currently, DISH Network Corporationhas a Zacks#3 Rank, implying a short-term Hold rating on the stock.
DISH NETWORK CP (DISH): Free Stock Analysis Report
LIONS GATE ETMT (LGF): Free Stock Analysis Report
AT&T INC (T): Free Stock Analysis Report
VIACOM INC-A (VIA): Free Stock Analysis Report
VERIZON COMM (VZ): Free Stock Analysis Report
Zacks Investment Research
