Dish Network was expected Saturday to replace three AMC Networks...

said. Dish told AMC earlier this year it wouldn’t renew its contract with the programmer based on the channels’ high costs compared to relatively low viewership. AT&T and AMC also are negotiating, with AT&T citing a request for an “excessive rate increase.” AT&T’s contract with AMC also expires Saturday. AMC fare includes Mad Men and The Walking Dead and a new season of Breaking Bad premieres July 15. Meanwhile, Dish is expected to combine satellite-based broadband services it markets from ViaSat and EchoStar’s Hughes Communications under the DishNet banner later this summer, a source familiar with the plans said. A Dish spokesman declined to comment. ViaSat’s Excede and Hughes’s HughesNet services target customers in different regions of the U.S. based largely on satellite coverage. HughesNet is expected to benefit from the launch of the EchoStar-17 Ka-band satellite, formerly Jupiter. The satellite’s launch was recently postponed from this month to July 5 aboard Arianespace’s Ariane-5 rocket. The satellite was been expected to be put into service by August (CED Jan 12 p4). Dish also won’t introduce new Hopper DVR/satellite receivers this year, but expects to add Wi-Fi to future versions in 2013, said Michael Michuda, product marketing specialist at Dish. The Hopper has three tuners and a two terabyte hard drive. Customers getting the Hopper product are typically adding two Joey HD- and 3D-capable client set-top boxes that use Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) technology to get content from the main receiver, Michuda said. Wi-Fi technology is likely to be added to Joey clients, Michuda said.