This just in: The STW Daily News Round-Up featuring all the news that’s fit to (digitally) print for Wednesday, August 3, 2022. DISH Networks reports fresh losses as the streaming wars continue to heat up in another red day for cable, Chris Pratt may not be finished with Star-Lord.
Red day for cable: DISH Network reports significant losses in Q2
After yesterday’s news that cable had lost roughly 5% of its viewers to streaming services in just 12 months, DISH released its second-quarter results on Wednesday further affirming the challenges traditional cable providers face with an abundance of over-the-top (OTT) content services.
Going to be a rough day for DISH on Wall Street
DISH Network Corporation (DISH) reported revenue totaling $4.21 billion for the quarter ending June 30, 2022, compared to $4.49 billion for the corresponding period in 2021.
Net income attributable to DISH Network totaled $523 million for the second quarter of 2022, compared to $671 million for the same quarter a year ago.
The loss of nearly $150 million in the second quarter is due to a net pay-TV subscribers decrease of approximately 257,000 in the second quarter, compared to a net decrease of approximately 67,000 last year.
The company closed the quarter with 9.99 million pay-TV subscribers, including 7.79 million DISH TV subscribers and 2.20 million Sling TV subscribers (down from 2.474 million in 2020).
Sling TV’s reported losses are interesting. While Sling TV provides some on-demand content, the service’s value proposition is low-cost streaming content that provides a traditional cable viewing experience. However, trends in streaming have consistently shown that consumer viewing habits are moving to on-demand content as viewers prefer to consume the content they enjoy when it is convenient to them.
Given the continued fragmentation of OTT providers (Disney pulling content to feed their own service, Netflix retaining rights to Friends, Paramount’s overnight about-face with its properties to serve Paramount+, etc.), expect stiff competition for niche content among OTT providers and a continued decline of traditional cable viewership.
Chris Pratt open to playing Star-Lord after GOTG 3
While James Gunn has been adamant that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 would serve as a bookend to the wildly successfully GOTG franchise, Chris Pratt appears open to staying in the captain seat of the Milano beyond Phase 4.
Commenting on whether he’d appear in the MCU beyond GOTG 3 on Cinemablend, Pratt left the door open for future appearances.
“I don’t know. I hope so. If not, you can always just follow me on Instagram. There are no plans for that right now. I think anything is possible, anything is possible. There’s [the] multiverse thing. I’m not saying I am, but if a character gets killed… Actually, turns out there are, like, crazy wormholes to bring people back.”
It’s exciting to think Pratt may not be done with his version of Star-Lord, but what is perhaps more interesting about his comment is the acknowledgment that his character could be killed.
Last month, we examined the possibility that Thor: Love and Thunder‘s Hercules could be the catalyst for Star-Lord’s demise.
In the comics, Hercules was captured and imprisoned by his own family only to be rescued by the Guardians of the Galaxy (a move that cost Star-Lord his life).
Did Waititi give us a glimpse of what’s to come in GOTG 3?
Only time will tell.