Dish Chairman: “I Think People Are Cutting the Cord”

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen is willing to say something few others in the pay TV business will concede.

“I think people are cutting the cord,” Ergen said at D: Dive Into Media, adding that it’s a generational thing, but soon to be a big thing. He noted that, for years, phone companies talked about how customers weren’t giving up their landlines.

There’s a reason why cigarette companies give out their product on college campuses, Ergen said. (Do they really still do that?)

“I think we ought to be hooking people on pay TV when they are young,” Ergen said. “If we are getting run out of town, I want to get in front of that.”

You can either fight change or embrace it, Ergen said.

“I believe it is less risky, long-term, to embrace change,” Ergen said.