Dish scraps plans to turn Blockbuster into Netflix competitor

Dish Network is abandoning plans to transform Blockbuster into a Netflix rival, founder and chairman Charlie Ergen told Bloomberg in an interview. Dish bought the movie rental company in April 2011 after its bankruptcy, opened a movie streaming and disc-by-mail service for Dish Network customers, and sold thousands of Blockbuster stores nationwide. The cable company still has additional plans for the Blockbuster brand aside from using it as a nationwide video streaming or disc-by-mail service, but Ergen would not reveal more than the fact that Dish has spoken with other cable networks about a streaming service for live programming, and such a service is “years away.” It’s unclear what the future holds for Blockbuster, but Ergen told Bloomberg “worst case, we’ll take our money after having wasted some time, not much money, and life goes on.”