The ability of DISH to continually bundle new services that are sports-oriented in addition to offering price-competitive services has emerged as a signification differentiator and core competency for the company (Solman, 2006). The third major strength of DISH networks is their pioneering work in the area of providing MPEG-4 Service. Beginning in August, 2008 the company initiated offering MPEG-4 programming as part of its TurboHD Service. MPEG-4 is considered the best possible format or resolution for high definition television broadcasting. The technological advancements in MPEG-4 programming has emerged as a competitive advantage for the company, giving them a lead technologically against TiVo Services (Wildstrom, 2007).

The three major weaknesses of DISH Network Corporation are the Operations being too concentrated in specific areas, programming content is often difficult to access, and the subscriber base is dwindling through churn and attrition. For each of these specific weaknesses, strategies of minimizing them are provided.

The fact that DISH Network's Operations are too concentrated in specific areas of the global market, with 99% of revenues concentrated in the U.S. market alone. These places the company at significant risk to the costs of labor, raw materials, access rights and operating expenses by not operating in multiple geographies.

To alleviate this risk, DISH would need to successfully launch into entirely new markets, including Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

A second weakness of the company is that the programming relied on for operating the service is difficult to access compared to competitors including DirectTV (Grover, 2008). As their primary competitor, DirecTV is partially owned (38.4%) by News Corporation, this makes the ability to gain access to regional sports broadcasting...

In February, 2008 DISH Networks completed a licensing agreement with News Corporation to gain access to these regional events and permission to bundle them with NFL events (Solman, 2006). This however only an interim solution to a longer-term, and more difficult challenge of gaining access to new programming. DISH will either need to purchase a content provider or begin their own production of content to overcome this weakness.
A third weakness the company is facing is their dwindling number of subscribers. In the last calendar year for example, DISH reports subscriber declines in three of their four quarters, which is the first company-wide decline ever seen in the satellite TV industry. In the 3rd quarter of 2008 alone, the company lost over 10,000 subscribers. To overcome this loss of customers, DISH spent 10.8% on subscriber-related expenses including equipment and product upgrades from the previous 2007 timeframe and also began introducing higher-end services including HDTV-capable satellite systems. These were all significant investments for DISH yet did not deliver exceptional results. The company needs to embrace a more focused strategy of segmenting only on the most profitable customers, minimize churn in these highly profitable segments and quit trying to be all things to all people. A more focused marketing message would help significantly, one focus only on the highest value customers.

Section III: Analysis of Opportunities and Threats

Despite the weaknesses DISH has, there is also an abundance of opportunity for the company to grow well into the 21st century. Accessibility to the technologies for digital broadcasting and content, the potential of bundling more services to increase customer loyalty, and high definition television market growth are the top three