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A transforming Dish Network expanded its senior management to oversee an aggressive move into wireless, hiring and promoting a handful of executives and announcing one high-profile exit.

Warren Schlichting is leaving as group president of Sling TV as the service continued to lose subscribers in the latest quarter. He was replaced by Michael Schwimmer, previously Exec VP of International, Business Development and Strategy with responsibility for Dish TV and Sling TV multicultural and Avod offerings. Schwimmer will also lead Dish Media Sales.

The other appointments reflect Dish’s move to enter the wireless market as a facilities-based provider of wireless services with a nationwide consumer offering and development of a standalone 5G broadband network. Industry veteran Dave Mayo has joined as Evp, Network Development after several decades at T-Mobile USA. Dish was smack in the middle of the recent $26-billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, picking up Sprint’s prepaid...

After the Federal Communications Commission reversed its longstanding pattern of making moves that are friendly to Sinclair Broadcast Group and flagged “serious concerns” about its pending merger with Tribune Media, the stocks in both companies took double-digit dives.

Tribune Media, which resumed trading after a late-morning halt, closed at $32.11, down 17% on volume that was more than 10 times normal levels. Sinclair shares tumbled nearly 12%, ending at $29.10 on five times the usual volume. Shares in other major station groups such as Tegna and Nexstar also fell sharply on the chilling effect of the comments.

Sinclair said in April that it would divest 23 television stations to win approval, but noted in regulatory filings that although it planned to sell the Chicago and New York stations to third parties it would enter into agreements to run them. Those “sidecar” deals have become increasingly common in the local TV sector, but have drawn scrutiny. FCC chairman Ajit Pai,...

Dish Network is insisting on its opposition to Comcast’s deal to buy Time Warner Cable, telling the FCC the deal would cause “irreparable harm” to the entertainment industry and consumers while providing “no discernible benefits.”

“Everyone who likes to watch high-quality online video has particular reason to worry about the proposed merger,” Jeff Blum, Dish’s Svp and deputy general counsel, said in a statement on Monday. “More than 54 percent of the country’s high-speed broadband connections would be controlled by the combined company, and all online video distributors would be at the mercy of Comcast-twc.”

See photos: The...

Universal Networks International have announced the acquisition of a brand-new web series for the Syfy UK. Syfy.co.uk will stream the UK online premiere of Buried Alive, a 15 x 10 minute for-web drama distributed by Sony Pictures Television.

The suspense-filled series is set to unfold over a four week period, with new episodes posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 13:00 GMT. Followers will witness a race-against-time as brother and sister Travis (Jeff Blum) and Melanie (Brit Morgan) struggle to uncover the hidden location of five abducted students, buried alive with rapidly depleting air and no-one to hear their screams.

The series will be the UK’s first introduction to lead star Brit Morgan, who is set to become a familiar face after winning the role of ‘Debbie Pelt’ in the highly anticipated third season of True Blood. Her Buried Alive co-stars include Jeff Blum, Bram Hoover, Nikki McKenzie, Greyson Chadwick,...