Dish ad hits DirecTV over celebrity endorsements

February 4, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Satellite TV providers Dish Network Corp. and DirecTV Inc. usually unleash attack advertisements against their cable TV competitors.

But as Dish lost subscribers while DirecTV gained, Dish has increasingly been targeting DirecTV.

At the Grammy Awards, Dish unveiled a 30-second TV commercial attacking DirecTV’s list of celebrity endorsers, such as Beyonc , Christina Aguilera and Kim Basinger.

“Maybe that’s why on average DirecTV customers spend over $175 a year more than Dish Network customers,” said the ad, which was created in-house at Dish.

“Someone’s got to pay for it,” said Ira Bahr, Dish’s chief marketing officer.

Bahr, an advertising industry veteran, spearheaded a campaign to go against DirecTV just four months after joining Dish in February 2009. This week’s ad is one of the most aggressive yet.

So far, he said, the campaign is working. Dish lost 94,000 net subscribers in the first quarter of 2009 and added 26,000 net customers in the second quarter, its first increase in five quarters. By the third quarter, it has gained 241,000.

Bahr said the commercial will run nationally through February.

DirecTV didn’t immediately return a call to comment.

Textbook move: Ex-Yahoo exec becomes CEO of Chegg

SAN FRANCISCO — It took three years, but former Yahoo executive Dan Rosensweig believes he has found another great Internet gig.

Rosensweig’s career shifted in a new direction last week when he took over as CEO of Chegg.com, a Silicon Valley startup that says it has rented about 2.4 million textbooks to cash-strapped college students since its 2007 inception.

It’s Rosensweig’s first job running an Internet company since he stepped down as Yahoo’s chief operating officer at the end of 2006. His departure turned out to be a prelude to years of upheaval that included Microsoft Corp.’s $47.5 billion takeover bid for the company and a shareholder revolt that ushered out two CEOs, Terry Semel and co-founder Jerry Yang.

Rosensweig, 48, watched the drama, but doesn’t want to share his feelings about what happened to the company since he left. Yahoo’s stock price has dropped by more than 40 percent since he announced his resignation. The shares tripled in value while he was COO.

Rosensweig left Yahoo with a financial package that gave him time to figure out his next move. Yahoo paid him $1.4 million in cash and awarded him 100,000 shares of stock worth about $3 million at the time.

Associated Press