Earlier this fall at CEDIA Expo in Denver, a lovely young Echostar employee named Leslie showed me the upcoming IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) feature, coming soon to a DISH Network box near you. As we navigated through the menus to see what kinds of content were available, I noticed an "After Hours" button in the menu and said, "Hey, click there." She obliged. And I saw the "cover art" of what appeared to be a hardcore porn flick, available for viewing.
Although there were none under the age of 18 present, my prurient sensibilities forbade me from pressing this issue any further, lest naked intertwined tatooed bodies were to fill the 42-inch flat panel with reckless abandon in front of legions of electronics geeks and journalists.
Flash forward less than two months and suddenly there's a new recording in my DISH Network DVR's list - a "New Features" video, about nine minutes long, and Hey, there's Leslie again, explaining how to activate this new internet-based content feature, "DISH Online." Plug in a network cable to the back of your DISH DVR, hook it up to your cable or DSL modem or home network and you're ready to roll. And there you'll find that very same "After Hours" link in the menu.
Leslie from DISH Network explains how to get yourself connected to DISH Online
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So for those who are not satisfied by "Skinemax," with its softcore simulated sex; those who may be looking for something a little more, well... "porny," sign up for DISH Network and a fine selection of adult entertainment will be just a few menu clicks (and a few dollars) away. And all in the comfort of your living room... or bedroom.
Of course, adult content is not the only appeal of this feature and this distribution method. From what DISH representatives tell me, the most popular downloads are entirely wholesome, such as Disney's "101 Dalmatians" and "Pocahontas." It's all about convenience and selection - getting titles that would not otherwise be easy to find, without having to leave the house.
With an internet connection, and movies available on-demand or for pre-ordering for later viewing, DISH Online will begin to deliver the so-called "long tail" of content - obscure titles which, on their own, may appeal to a small audience, but when the selection of these titles multiplies into the hundreds or thousands and distribution costs shrink to close to nill, that small audience is magnified, and so are the revenues.
Delivering a similarly broad selection of titles via satellite would be difficult if not impossible - there just aren't enough "birds" in the sky to support the bandwidth required by dozens of movies on-demand, let alone the thousands of films and programs that can be made available via an internet connection.
DISH Online integrates internet-based content with a standard DISH Network DVR.
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Some say that the availability of adult titles made the difference in that famous format battle of VHS vs. Betamax. JVC was only too happy to allow adult film providers to replicate their content onto the fledgling VHS format, while Sony was hesitant to allow the same on Beta. These people seem to forget that only Sony and Sanyo were licensed to create Betamax VCRs while a dozen or more major electronics manufacturers were licensed to create VHS VCRs, and that VHS was first to hit the magic "2 hour per tape" milestone. But the "porn" factor - or in a broader sense, the "content" factor - was certainly a major contributor to the success of VHS over Beta.
Will the same hold true in the battle of content providers? Will DISH Network, with its internet-based content distribution, combined with traditional satellite broadcasting of standard and HDTV channels, enhanced with effectively
unlimited storage of content win the hearts and minds (and other body parts) of prospective customers? Will they steal viewers away from CableVision or Time Warner? From DIRECTV? From Netflix and Amazon?
We shall see...
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