Dish’s Charlie Ergen looks to consolidate his telecom empire

Charlie Ergen is looking to merge the two halves of his telecom empire, Dish and EchoStar, a deal that would tilt Dish away from a satellite TV business in decline. Apparently, both companies have engaged advisers to sort through what a deal might look like. A key issue: EchoStar is financially stronger than Dish, which is spending heavily to build out a nationwide mobile network while outrunning the cord-cutting that has gutted its core business. EchoStar spun out from Dish in 2008, which kept the set-top TV business while shedding the satellite infrastructure. The 70-year-old Ergen has long been the industry’s enfant terrible. The rooftop dishes he sold from the back of his truck in the 1980s became a $35 billion thorn in cable’s side. He has meddled in rivals’ deals for decades, sometimes as self-interested supporter (throwing his weight behind the tie-up of Sprint and T-Mobile) and sometimes as spoiler (twice outfoxing Rupert Murdoch). As the media world has changed around him, rivals have been watching to see what he’ll do with the aging assets he still has. Chief among them is valuable spectrum that he’s been hoarding for years and is now trying to turn into a competitor to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Dish has said it plans to spend $10 billion on the effort. Some analysts say even that amount — which is less than half of what Verizon spent in 2022 alone — won’t be enough. The company may need as much as $3 billion more to meet a 2025 deadline from the Federal Communications Commission to offer service to 75% of Americans.