Latest from Next TV in Acquisition

Dish to Purchase Republic Wireless

michael.farrell@futurenet.com (Mike Farrell) — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 17:32:16 +0000

Dish Network said it will purchase Republic Wireless, a mobile operator with about 200,000 customer relationships, for an undisclosed sum.

Republic Wireless provides service via a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement with T-Mobile. Dish, which is in the process of building its own 5G wireless network, has agreed to buy spectrum from T-Mobile and also operates a prepaid wireless business (Boost Mobile) which uses T-Mobile’s network.

Also Read: Dish: No Partner Needed for Wireless Dance

This is the second small wireless acquisition Dish has made since agreeing to buy about $3.6 billion in wireless spectrum from T-Mobile over three years (and the Boost Mobile business for another $1.4 billion) in 2019 as part of the larger company’s purchase of Sprint. In August, Dish agreed to purchase prepaid phone company Ting Mobile. As part of the Republic deal, Dish said SVP of Ting Mobile and MVNO platform Rob Currie, will lead the Republic Wireless business.

"Republic has created a loyal following and established a brand known for innovation, customer service and value. We plan to build upon that strong foundation," said Dish chief operating officer and president of its Retail Wireless unit John Swieringa, in a press release. "As we continue to grow our retail wireless business, Republic broadens our existing customer base and positions us to deliver even more value to the market, expanding our portfolio of mobile solutions to meet a variety of customer needs. We look forward to welcoming Republic customers to the Dish family."

After the deal closes, expected in the second quarter of this year, Republic’s Relay division, which provides communications service to hospitality, healthcare, facilities management, manufacturing and education clients, will continue to operate as a standalone company. Relay will also become a wholesale customer on Dish’s 5G network.

TiVo Name Lives On, but Integration Work Looms

Jeff Baumgartner — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:00:00 +0000

Rovi’s acquisition of TiVo went through without a hitch last week, but now comes the hard part — integrating and shaping the new company and its product lines, and determining its long-term retail strategy.

Many of those questions are still to be answered as the new company, which is keeping the TiVo name and giving the Rovi brand the boot, starts to act on a plan expected to generate $100 million in synergies.

“The near term for us is really about pulling the two companies together and trying to get them humming as best we can,” Tom Carson, president and CEO of the new TiVo, said last Wednesday (Sept. 7), the day the $1.1 billion deal was closed.

“We’ll go through each of the product lines — everything from traditional set-top box guides to Internetconnected guides to search [and] recommendations technologies, all of the [areas] where you have overlap, and figure out what is best-of-breed and how do you want to optimize all of those solutions,” Carson said. “No decisions have been made on any of the product lines.”

Also to be decided is the future trajectory of TiVo’s retail strategy. TiVo was apparently still pushing ahead in that area before the deal was wrapped up — Federal Communications Commission documents show that TiVo is developing “Mantis,” a network DVR product with integrated over-the-air TV capabilities that is seemingly targeted to cord-cutters.

“The consumer business is something that is still of interest to us,” Carson said. “Having product in consumers’ homes is beneficial on the product development side and can help us with the products we develop for service providers.”

But Carson said the trend with service providers — to offer hardware-agnostic software, apps and interfaces — is an angle TiVo will also consider for its retail business. If there are questions about how to go forward, “it’s about what’s the right hardware strategy for the consumer business,” he said.

Synacor Stokes OTT Flames, Buying NimbleTV

Jeff Baumgartner — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:00:00 +0000

NimbleTV shut down its direct-to-consumer pay TV streaming service earlier this month, but its technology will live on and could someday help traditional multichannel video programming distributors offer over-the-top packages that are similar to Sling TV, Dish Network’s new service targeted to cord-cutters.

That scenario is one possibility that could emerge from Synacor’s acquisition last week of NimbleTV’s assets, which include a video encoding and over-the-top distribution system and some key cloud-video knowhow.

NimbleTV will help to fill a technology gap for Synacor, which is already strong in authentication technologies, with products including its Cloud ID social-login platform as well as some user interface and video searchand- discovery software.

Combined, the companies’ products give Synacor the tools required to build a broader OTT platform that can be used by its MVPD partners to develop live-TV streaming services that use the digital distribution rights the distributors already have with programmers — perhaps even outside of their traditional footprints.

That’s a big shift from the original business model that NimbleTV had employed in New York and Chicago.

Rather than working with MVPDs directly, NimbleTV provided remote access to a subset of live-TV channels for free and had broader paid packages that allowed customers to link their existing pay TV service to the cloud, enabling them to watch on an array of IP-connected devices, including PCs and laptops, iPhones and iPads, the Apple TV (via Airplay) and the Roku platform.

NimbleTV also marketed a “concierge” plan (starting at $29.98 per month) whereby it set up the customer’s pay TV subscription. In New York, NimbleTV supported this by piggybacking on services from Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS and RCN, and in Chicago with Comcast, AT&T U-verse and RCN.

Boiled down, NimbleTV’s platform essentially served as a cloud-based Slingbox. NimbleTV also sold a network DVR service that started at $4.99 per month for 10 hours of storage space.

NimbleTV’s consumer service went dark on Jan. 12, just two days before the Synacor deal was announced, a clear indication NimbleTV’s underlying systems will now be used in a way that has the full support of Synacor’s pay TV partners.

Synacor didn’t outline its full plans for NimbleTV, but said it will hire NimbleTV’s 13 employees and will integrate the startup’s encoding and streaming technology with Synacor’s existing platform. That, Synacor said, will help it push forward on the development of authenticated, linear TV service for its customers. Among Synacor’s existing clients are Verizon, Charter Communications, Suddenlink Communications, CenturyLink Communications, WideOpenWest, Armstrong and Mediacom Communications.

“We see a fragmented landscape of vendors and believe our customers are looking to Synacor as a one-stop, trusted partner,” Himesh Bhise, Synacor’s CEO, said in a statement.

The acquisition is the first for Synacor under Bhise, a former AOL, Comcast and Charter exec who was named CEO last August. He joined Synacor as the company was getting pushed by two dissident investors to seek a sale.

Synacor, which let go about 20% of its workforce last fall as part of a reorganization, has said it will pursue a growth strategy that will keep the company independent.

SeaChange to Acquire Timeline Labs

Tuman Jaclyn — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 21:45:00 +0000

SeaChange International has entered into an agreement to obtain TLL, LLC, which does business as Timeline Labs.

Timeline Labs is a California-based SaaS company that helps local broadcasters, national news organizations, cable news channels and other media companies and brands to find and air social trends, track audience engagment, as well as dissect social media messages in real-time.

Through the agreement, SeaChange will pay $14 million in cash and $8 million in shares of SeaChange stock. There will also be up to $2.5 million in deferred performance-based consideration, which are payable in shares of the company's stock.

Fox Television Stations, Sinclair, Media General, Tribune broadcast television stations, and online providers like 120Sports.com are among Timeline's customers.