If Dish joins the Death Star that is AT&T and Directv, I will take that as the last excuse I need to put up a 50’ tower with a massive OTA antenna and rotor and kiss pay TV goodbye (except Netflix, of course) 
" the wheels are falling off of satellite TV"
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The question is you got to ask is what does Dish have that AT&T want?
Maybe some spectrum, but it definitely is not Satellite assets.
It’s like monopoly. Directv owns park place and boardwalk with the 101 slot, and the rail roads, water works and the electric company.
Dish has the properties like Baltic and Connecticut ave.
Lot's of talk here and numerous reasons, but I think the underlying cause for these sub losses for (satellite and cable too) is cost. With their incessant price hikes, they're pricing themselves out of reach for many people and ultimately, out of business.
It's probably still a ways off, but there will come a time when a dwindling subscriber base will no longer justify the cost for satellite providers (possibly cable too) in maintaining their infrastructure.
It's probably still a ways off, but there will come a time when a dwindling subscriber base will no longer justify the cost for satellite providers (possibly cable too) in maintaining their infrastructure.
It's the content owners causing the inflated prices, but cable has other services (phone, internet) to fall back on and absorb the losses. Directv too, now with their merger with AT&T. Dish is the clear underdog in this arena at the moment.
This is why there is speculation that both DISH and DIRECTV( ATT ) might merge. Because they are both bleeding satellite subs and merging might put off the eventual end of the industry for a little while longer. That is all we have been seeing for the last few years and that is media consolidation or merging. Pay Tv is losing subs at a terrific rate . The satellite business is basically the SEARS of the dying brick and mortar retail industry. Just a matter of time before it either dies all together or merges with some other business to become something different all together.
With the T-Mobile/Sprint merger apparently going through, I wonder if that will make a Dish merger more attractive to them for both the spectrum holdings and the programming content that would allow them to be competitive with AT&T and Verizon in more mediums than cell services.
I agree that it's the content owners/providers, but the cost issue for a declining subscriber base remains regardless who is responsible.
Did you read the rest of my post? Dish is the only provider that would suffer from a declining subscriber base, as the other companies have other services to absorb/mitigate the losses. They can offer artificially low TV prices and make up for it with profits from telephone and internet bundles.
Sling still puts a customer at the mercy of the local ISP, whereas ATT can move them to Directvnow and just give customers a break on internet just like cable does with the 2 and 3 play bundles. Dish/Sling are currently stranded on an island by themselves
I could be way off base, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing, at least for the forseeable future. Lack of broadband in rural areas gives Dish a niche.
Not really. AT&T is still a competitor to Dish in rural areas with DTV, and they have the financial backing of offering their other services where broadband is available. In essence, DTV could undercut Dish in price in rural areas and still make enough profits with their other services to squash Dish like a bug.
Doubtful for long. This is a generational change and the old pay tv model is headed for the eventual dust bin of history. The losses will continue to accelerate until they either change to a true ala cart service and let people choose what they want to pay for or let them buy tv series by the show instead of the channel itself. After all most of the day on any cable channel is made up of reruns of network tv and infomercials . The only really original programming comes at night during prime time viewing hours and then repeated again right after they end . Canada has already mandated by law true ala cart on their pay tv services . I just wonder how that is working out and if that slowed their pay tv losses . But you have to remember that the entire population of Canada is about equal to that of the state of California. So we are talking about a smaller country to compare too, but it would still be interesting to see.
I was a dish network subscriber from 1995 to 2017 December. No one saying the real reason is because sat providers keep hiring out of country support! Cheap labor will eventually cost your business!
The pay TV model has been constantly changing and evolving for the past forty years, it will continue to evolve.
With regard to original programming, there is more original programming during the day than in prime time. It may not be the programming you watch, but it's there nonetheless. Soap operas (what little is still there), game shows, talk shows, etc. are original programs and many millions enjoy them.
The emerging iptv platform will allow customers to purchase broadband from one provider and only the programming they want directly from the programmer..problem is that most millenials want free
That works until Comcast decides to block all Netflix or ATT iptv streams at the Exchange points. Net Neutrality be damned.
