DIRECTV unlikely to keep NFL Sunday Ticket

[robjlevin]

For most older folks..who cares..they like to interact with people..not live like a hermit

Older than WHAT?

 

[brice52]

Of course.

Which is why all the “look at all the money I’m saving” crap is just so much ho-ha. Streaming is just another form of bundle.

Two problems for the consumer.

More or less, with cable (DBS, etc) “everybody” had the main channels and thus the cost was spread across a huge number of people, and this small for each one. Streaming is not one bundle, but a dozen or more of them, with far fewer subscribers for each one. Meaning the costs will be higher.

Second is sports. If you are not a sports fan, too bad. Until the customer acquisition bubble bursts, every service is going to go after customers with second and third tier sports. Don’t like sports? Too bad, you have to pay. And you are not paying for the major sports on real ESPN, et al, but much lower things. Like sports? Too bad. Now you need access to the OTA networks (not a given in much of the rural parts of the country), plus real linear ESPNs, FS1&2, TBS, TNT, USA, and other linear networks, PLUS EPNN+, PLUS multiple streamers (Apple, Amazon, Paramount, Peacock) to get the sports you used to get from just one cable bill. And, you have to pay for all the other stuff on all those channels, none of which appeals to the same demographic as sports. 10 bills. Maybe 12. And, again, the costs get spread over a far smaller population, meaning it must cost more when the streaming bubble bursts.

Higher costs, more bills, less content.

BTW, Amazon gets another new low, 4.95. With baseball featuring the same two cities, the lowest rated NFL game in 30 years is probably this Thursday.

I will be 70 in 15 days right now I have dish network $135 per month, Nomand router over T-mobile unlimited

So what do they use it for?

I pesently have dish $135 a month, Nomand internet unlimited over T-Mobile $149 a month. So when Focus Broadband gets to our rural area next year I will drop dish and Nomad and stream. In 14 days I will 70. I will only get their 250/250 plan for $59.95. That will be plenty of speed for my wife and I and 7 year old granddaughter when she is here.

 

[NashGuy]

I get it and limited basic cable TV through my teleco because the bundled price is cheaper than the slowest stand-alone internet product.

Wow, that's some crazy pricing. Who's your telco?

I remember years ago that it was cheaper to get Comcast's broadband bundled with limited basic TV than it was to just get standalone broadband. Although that was also when their add-on broadcast fee for local channels (which is basically all you get in the limited basic package) was like $3/mo. Now it's $18.65/mo here! At this point, the extra total cost per month to add that TV package to broadband is $32.50, regardless of your internet speed tier.

There's also a pretty significant difference in pricing between the entry-level and gigabit speed tiers here, both on Comcast and AT&T Fiber.

 

[Bilbo1]

Wow, that's some crazy pricing. Who's your telco?

It’s now altaFiber… until recently, Cincinnati Bell.

There are introductory offers that are cheaper, but long term customer. I’ve gone to their shop and called in the past and was told if I broke the bundle, it would raise my price. I’ve also tried online. Price goes up. Customer service agents were confused.

I actually think there are computer issues with the account on their end. Nothing makes sense. I was an early adopter of their online system. It’s like I’m locked into a 15 year old deal. I’ve been paying the same price forever. The price didn’t change when they installed fiber in my neighborhood and changed to GB internet. I had like a one year deal then that was like $10 cheaper, but it expired. The price went back to what I always paid. I no longer question things.

One of these days, I may drop YTTV for their equivalent fiber TV package. It would save maybe $20 a month. I didn’t like their cable box. They changed the TV system and there is now an Apple TV app. I think powered by TiVo.

 

[Bruce]

From Dish’s 3rd Quarter Conference Call yesterday with Charlie Ergen-

“If the timing (of a DIRECTV-Dish merger) was right, it would be in the near term, not the longer term.”

So, say goodbye to the RSNs if Dish is in charge.

 

[NashGuy]

Large, potentially controversial mergers such as between the only two remaining satellite TV services in the nation are typically attempted at times when they run the lowest risk of political backlash from candidates angling for votes. In other words, it's best to announce such a deal outside of election season. This, I think, was the reality behind Ergen's remarks earlier this year about this year not being a good time politically to attempt a deal. Better to wait and announce a deal *after* the upcoming midterm elections. But by the same token, they wouldn't want to wait until Jan. 2024 to announce a deal because, well, we'll be full-swing into presidential primary season and the run-up to the Nov. '24 elections by then.

Does Dish really want to wait until Jan. '25 to strike a deal with DTV, knowing that their last two viable sats might run out of fuel by the end of that year? Seems to be cutting it a little too close for comfort to me. And why would they assume that the presidency would change in Jan. '25? And even if it does why bet that a GOP admin would be any friendlier to the deal than the Biden admin? (Yes, the GOP tends to let big business do what they want but also remember that satellite TV impacts rural Americans more than anyone else and the GOP base skews heavily rural/exurban.)

Meanwhile, it's been reported that TPG went into their deal with AT&T to own DTV with the expectation of exiting (i.e. selling their 30% stake in the company) within 3 years. That would mean a sale closing by Aug. 2024.

Anything's possible, of course, but I continue to think that all the facts point to a merger deal between Dish and DTV being announced any time between this Thanksgiving and mid-2023. It would obviously take several months for the deal to be reviewed and then close.

From Dish’s 3rd Quarter Conference Call yesterday with Charlie Ergen-

“If the timing (of a DIRECTV-Dish merger) was right, it would be in the near term, not the longer term.”

Welp, looks like I was right. Wait until election season is over and then try to get a deal done to merge Dish and DTV while the getting is good in 2023.

 

[Juan]

Welp, looks like I was right. Wait until election season is over and then try to get a deal done to merge Dish and DTV while the getting is good in 2023.

The only way dish and directtv ever merge is for charle to spin off dish the same way att spun off directv..he won't be allowed to control the combined company..it wio have to be a seperate independent entity..that he can own part of but not control

 

[NashGuy]

The only way dish and directtv ever merge is for charle to spin off dish the same way att spun off directv..he won't be allowed to control the combined company..it wio have to be a seperate independent entity..that he can own part of but not control

Yeah, something like that is what I've been predicting for a long time. Sort of like what happened with DTV when AT&T spun it off into a separate company jointly owned by AT&T and the investor group TPG. When the next deal happens, TPG is going to get their payout and exit. So I can imagine there being a new joint venture company formed that would be jointly owned by AT&T and Dish, with both sides getting to put board members in place but the company being its own independent entity.

I suspect Charlie is mainly interested in day-to-day running his new 5G business, not the TV business. But he may get the satisfaction of having Dish be the sole remaining brand of satellite TV service sold to customers, as I don't see them selling and installing both brands. But I could see DirecTV living on as an active business purely in its streaming form. Meanwhile, all those folks on DirecTV Satellite would be able to retain that service and their existing packages as long as they kept it. They'd be grandfathered in.

 

[Bilbo1]

Welp, looks like I was right. Wait until election season is over and then try to get a deal done to merge Dish and DTV while the getting is good in 2023.

Given that the two satellite networks are incompatible, combining them your require scrapping one and moving people to the other. Seeing as neither company appears to be launching new satellites or developing new receivers, what would be the point of merging?

I could see it 10+ years ago, when both were developing new hardware and launching satellites. Combining things then made sense.

But, nowadays, all you’d be able to combine is billing operations. Where is the benefit in that?

 

[NashGuy]

Given that the two satellite networks are incompatible, combining them your require scrapping one and moving people to the other. Seeing as neither company appears to be launching new satellites or developing new receivers, what would be the point of merging?

I could see it 10+ years ago, when both were developing new hardware and launching satellites. Combining things then made sense.

But, nowadays, all you’d be able to combine is billing operations. Where is the benefit in that?

There's a big benefit in eliminating your only direct competitor for the dwindling number of consumers interested in satellite TV. You don't have to be as aggressive in marketing. And there would be operational savings overall since you'd only be installing one hardware system, not two, going forward. There's also be a benefit when it comes to negotiating carriage rates with TV channels as you'd have a larger pool of customers.

Dish also has to be concerned that its newest satellites will be 15 years old come 2025, and could cease to be operational at any point after that, given that 15 years is the expected lifespan (although many sats can and do last longer). I imagine that they'll aim to get many of their customers' receivers hooked up to broadband so that those TV channels can be delivered to them that way rather than through a rooftop dish. But for those who can't or won't connect to broadband, they'll need to do a re-install and switch them over to DTV's newer fleet of sats. Their newest sat should be operational through the early 2030s, which is as long as US residential satellite TV is going to exist.

 

[slice1900]

Their newest sat should be operational through the early 2030s, which is as long as US residential satellite TV is going to exist.

You mean their oldest sat should be operational through the early 2030s (oldest of the ones in the core fleet that aren't redundant or only used to support MPEG2 SD - D11/D12/D14/T15/T16)

 

[NashGuy]

You mean their oldest sat should be operational through the early 2030s (oldest of the ones in the core fleet that aren't redundant or only used to support MPEG2 SD - D11/D12/D14/T15/T16)

No, I meant the newest sat, the T16. It was launched on 6/20/19, so given a 15 year lifespan, should be operational until at least mid-2034.

As for those other sats you list, which are all older than the T16, here are their launch dates and then the 15-years-later dates (all info taken from Wikipedia):

T15: 5/27/15 -- 5/27/30
T14: 12/6/14 -- 12/6/29
T12: 12/28/09 -- 12/28/24
T11: 3/19/08 -- 3/19/23

So the only DTV sat that we should definitely expect to last through the early 2030s is the newest one, T16. Although there's a decent chance that one or both of T15 and T14 will last some amount of time into the 2030s too.

If we look at the three most recent sats to go defunct, they lasted spans of about 15, 17 and 18 years, respectively. (Some earlier sats, however, didn't even last 15 years.) About 18 years is the record for any of the now-defunct sats. So it's hard to imagine any of the current birds going more than 3 years beyond the 15-year-EOL dates I list above.

Assuming there's still sufficient consumer demand for satellite TV service through the end of 2030, I think it should be feasible for the company to offer it nationally using T16, T15 and maybe T14. But by, say, 2032, they might be down to just the one sat, T16. But, again, would there even still be enough demand for a linear channel pay TV service delivered via sat for the business to still be financially feasible in 2032?

As it all winds down, I can imagine that the sat service would have to focus on a dwindling package of channels and probably only carry select local stations from a few major cities around the country in each time zone, e.g. NYC, Chicago, Denver, LA.

 

[Juan]

Given that the two satellite networks are incompatible, combining them your require scrapping one and moving people to the other. Seeing as neither company appears to be launching new satellites or developing new receivers, what would be the point of merging?

I could see it 10+ years ago, when both were developing new hardware and launching satellites. Combining things then made sense.

But, nowadays, all you’d be able to combine is billing operations. Where is the benefit in that?

A satellite is a satellite..it wasn't built specifically for dish or directv...the only difference is the receiver..a software update might allow a dish receiver to read a directv frequencies or vice versa..they both use mpeg2 and mpeg 4 technology..its basically the same technolgy for both companies...the big downside would be repointing dishes to one set of satellites..too much manpower

 

[slice1900]

No, I meant the newest sat, the T16. It was launched on 6/20/19, so given a 15 year lifespan, should be operational until at least mid-2034.

As for those other sats you list, which are all older than the T16, here are their launch dates and then the 15-years-later dates (all info taken from Wikipedia):

T15: 5/27/15 -- 5/27/30
T14: 12/6/14 -- 12/6/29
T12: 12/28/09 -- 12/28/24
T11: 3/19/08 -- 3/19/23

So the only DTV sat that we should definitely expect to last through the early 2030s is the newest one, T16. Although there's a decent chance that one or both of T15 and T14 will last some amount of time into the 2030s too.

If we look at the three most recent sats to go defunct, they lasted spans of about 15, 17 and 18 years, respectively. (Some earlier sats, however, didn't even last 15 years.) About 18 years is the record for any of the now-defunct sats. So it's hard to imagine any of the current birds going more than 3 years beyond the 15-year-EOL dates I list above.

Assuming there's still sufficient consumer demand for satellite TV service through the end of 2030, I think it should be feasible for the company to offer it nationally using T16, T15 and maybe T14. But by, say, 2032, they might be down to just the one sat, T16. But, again, would there even still be enough demand for a linear channel pay TV service delivered via sat for the business to still be financially feasible in 2032?

As it all winds down, I can imagine that the sat service would have to focus on a dwindling package of channels and probably only carry select local stations from a few major cities around the country in each time zone, e.g. NYC, Chicago, Denver, LA.

The satellites that recently went defunct doubled their 10 year design life. The current fleet all had a 15 year design life.

And D8, which is just a placeholder at 119 for legacy MPEG2 SD DMAs has fuel life until 2034 despite being launched in the mid 2000s.

 

[Don in CT]

A satellite is a satellite..it wasn't built specifically for dish or directv...the only difference is the receiver..a software update might allow a dish receiver to read a directv frequencies or vice versa..they both use mpeg2 and mpeg 4 technology..its basically the same technolgy for both companies...the big downside would be repointing dishes to one set of satellites..too much manpower

They would probably go the SXM route. Simulcast to both.

 

[CSM]

They would probably go the SXM route. Simulcast to both.

Wouldn't that be a huge undertaking? If you mean using the same Dish GUI and channels on the DTV boxes but keep the same channel number for DTV and Dish so customers wouldn't have to memorize?

 

[NashGuy]

The satellites that recently went defunct doubled their 10 year design life. The current fleet all had a 15 year design life.

And D8, which is just a placeholder at 119 for legacy MPEG2 SD DMAs has fuel life until 2034 despite being launched in the mid 2000s.

Even if any of those sats had a 10 year design life to begin with, none of them doubled that because none of the sats have lasted 20 years. The longest was T4S, which launched Nov. 2001 and went defunct Oct. 2019, just shy of 18 years later. And it's somewhat of an outlier.

Anyhow, doesn't really affect my earlier assertion that consumer demand for DBS service will likely fade away before the DTV sat fleet will in the 2030s. I have a hard time seeing how there will be enough customers willing to pay for a satellite-delivered linear pay channel service a decade from now to keep it going.

 

[Don in CT]

Wouldn't that be a huge undertaking? If you mean using the same Dish GUI and channels on the DTV boxes but keep the same channel number for DTV and Dish so customers wouldn't have to memorize?

Keep the equipment separate but equal. Run the satellites as they are now just rebrand everything.

 

[CSM]

Keep the equipment separate but equal. Run the satellites as they are now just rebrand everything.

How would the rebranding look? Like NashGuy said just where the only changes DTV customers would see is just the Dish Network logo on the GUI?

 

[Don in CT]

How would the rebranding look? Like NashGuy said just where the only changes DTV customers would see is just the Dish Network logo on the GUI?

Who knows, has it happened yet. I’m just assuming they will keep both systems active. They can’t just shut down one without changing out everything.