This was posted in the editorial section of today's SkyReport. Intriguing, makes me wonder whether D* and E* want to thrive, survive, or just annihilate each other.
A merger between Echostar and DIRECTV is not the only option available to both companies. They could create a joint venture company "InfraSat" that owns the ground stations, satellites and provides engineering services such as receiver design.
With such a business structure, both Echostar and DIRECTV become marketing and branding companies, negotiating their own deals with content providers and creating their own programming packages. The cost savings by removing duplicated ground and space facilities would be huge. Capacity issues would also be addressed by only uplinking one copy of each national and local channel.
The precedent for such an organization exists in several industries already, including the auto industry where engines are shared and in some cases, entire vehicles are sold under two different brand names.
With such a business structure, both Echostar and DIRECTV become marketing and branding companies, negotiating their own deals with content providers and creating their own programming packages. The cost savings by removing duplicated ground and space facilities would be huge. Capacity issues would also be addressed by only uplinking one copy of each national and local channel.
The precedent for such an organization exists in several industries already, including the auto industry where engines are shared and in some cases, entire vehicles are sold under two different brand names.