Dish Turns Away From TV for Smart Home Services Not Requiring Subscription
Dish Network, selling add-on audio and connected home products to pad its satellite TV installations for the past decade, is moving into a non-TV-centric business based on the connected home, Jeremy McCarty, general manager of the recently formed OnTech Smart Services brand, told us Monday. The service is launching in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and St. Louis.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
No TV service is required for an OnTech system, which begins at $99 for installation and setup of products such as Wi-Fi or connected thermostats or doorbells. McCarty said “you don’t even need to have to have TV," calling that a differentiator.
Comparing OnTech to Comcast's Xfinity Home and others, “Not only are they constricted in terms of geography, specifically, you have to be a subscriber,” McCarty said. “We’re not tied to a brick-and-mortar store, you don’t have to be part of a subscription, and we’re offering all of the products and services to everyone.” But, he conceded, subscriptions in the smart home space “make a lot of sense,” and the company is working on "unique" ideas for recurring revenue models on the product and services side.
McCarty downplayed the rapid attrition in satellite TV subscribers in the cord-cutting age as impetus for the company to bring out an offering independent of pay TV. Kagan’s most recent data showed satellite accounted for the bulk of MVPD declines in Q1, with DirecTV and Dish combining for 1 million net subscription losses (see 1905240040). “For the longest time we’ve been doing this, and doing this really well for Dish customers, and it was just time for us to do it for everyone else,” the executive said.
The company will continue to offer smart home products and services for Dish Network customers, but the new initiative allows “any person in America to get access” to smart home services “same and next-day,” an area where Dish sees a void.
Responding to having another national service company -- in addition to Comcast with Xfinity Home, Vivint with its security products and ADT with Pulse -- penetrate a market custom integrators want to own themselves, ProSource CEO Dave Workman told us Dish has been selling add-on products with satellite TV installations for some time. When it happened in the past, Workman asked his dealers what kind of challenge a national smart home brand is to their custom businesses. Dealers typically say the appeal of those simple, curated services is a “different level below what most of our dealers are doing," Workman said.