Dish Network buys Blockbuster for $320 million

It makes me happy that a company that so blatantly laughed in the face of one of their competitors (Netflix) is now being sold on the chopping block for pennies on the dollar.

Really makes Reed Hastings look like a visionary.

Dish probably came out ahead by purchasing the entire company rather than letting Icahn win and then buying the relevant assets. If Icahn was chasing it, there was real-estate value there.

And that appears to be the case when one considers that Dish only paid $190k per store. Based on $20k per store per year that's a 11% cap rate - and the worst performing locations have already been culled from the portfolio. Consider that $20k per store per year can probably be achieved with less than 10 Dish network subscription sales per month and the deal for corporate controlled retail locations makes more sense.

All the rest of it - the streaming and content deals, kiosks, etc. is just more upside.

Few people probably realize that the Blockbuster Express kiosks all over the country in supermarkets and whatnot are owned by NCR who just licensed the name from Blockbuster, inc. Dish Network doesn't really benefit from those in this deal as far as I can tell.

When BB filed for chapter 11, NCR sent out an email stating that it would not affect BBExpress kiosks in the slightest.

I don't really see any reason for Dish to do this. What value is there? Brand image? Maybe, but $320 million doesn't sound right.

What a bad move! A company of a dying type buys an already dead company. Nothing new or original to come out of this.

Funny response by Fast Company about what to do with it: http://www.fastcompany.com/1745065/blockbuster-bought-by-dis...