Dish and DirecTV once again in talks despite antitrust.

[bluegras]

https://nypost.com/2022/01/11/direc...ign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=pasteboard_app&s=09

 

[ethanlerma]

Fixed the link for you DirecTV and Dish in merger talks once again despite past antitrust concerns

 

[bluegras]

Good morning one more link this morning

DISH, DirecTV: Renewed merger talks

AT&T’s DirecTV and Charlie Ergen’s DISH Network have reportedly resumed talks regarding merging their DTH operations - and a deal could be close. The

advanced-television.com

 

[mwdxer1]

I figured this would happen as neither services will be able to keep going without a merge. I had no idea Direct had lost 10 million subs in 5 years. That is even worse than Dish. If they are allowed to merge, they will be back up to 23 million, at least for the time being. I wonder if they merge, if both Dish and Direct will have different packages, or will both merge together in programming? The core is close, but Direct has a lot more sports and Dish has diginets and other programming. This will be interesting. I presume we will keep the same receivers/antennas as it would cost too much to replace them.

 

[DWS44]

I figured this would happen as neither services will be able to keep going without a merge. I had no idea Direct had lost 10 million subs in 5 years. That is even worse than Dish. If they are allowed to merge, they will be back up to 23 million, at least for the time being. I wonder if they merge, if both Dish and Direct will have different packages, or will both merge together in programming? The core is close, but Direct has a lot more sports and Dish has diginets and other programming. This will be interesting. I presume we will keep the same receivers/antennas as it would cost too much to replace them.

I would think we'd see a very slow merging of the two, similar to what we saw with Sirius and XM. There's a lot of parallels there beyond just the satellite connection.

 

[Jimbo]

I figured this would happen as neither services will be able to keep going without a merge. I had no idea Direct had lost 10 million subs in 5 years. That is even worse than Dish. If they are allowed to merge, they will be back up to 23 million, at least for the time being. I wonder if they merge, if both Dish and Direct will have different packages, or will both merge together in programming? The core is close, but Direct has a lot more sports and Dish has diginets and other programming. This will be interesting. I presume we will keep the same receivers/antennas as it would cost too much to replace them.

Thats not happening for QUITE awhile ...

One article said a deal was close, not so if the other article is accurate.
It said that the 5g had to be in place before they would do anything.
Thier idea all along is to get internet up and running and continue to drive people away from Sat ... if thats so, why bother with a merger if your just going to disban in anyways.
Thats no different than when att bought D* and did NOTHING to try to improve it.

Nope, nothing happening here for awhile.

 

[Radioguy41]

A possible merger is an old, oft heard story, I'll believe it when I see it. But there are a couple of things of note.

First, if TPG is so desperate to get it's investment back after such a short period of time maybe it shouldn't have invested in a failing enterprise, allowing the people who mismanaged it to continue to manage it, in the first place. Glad I don't have any money in TPG, their incompetence is showing. It certainly appears they're trying to bail out of a bad investment.

Second, the FAA is concerned that 5G antennas around airports might interfere with airplanes? Seems to me that was a concern voiced by critics way back when 5G was first being pushed so now, after the rollout has begun, now the FAA is showing concern? Seriously? Sounds like somebody wasn't paying attention and didn't do their homework. Can you imagine coming to depend on 5G but having a dead zone within miles of every airport in the country including approaches?

 

[Bruce]

Thats not happening for QUITE awhile ...

One article said a deal was close, not so if the other article is accurate.
It said that the 5g had to be in place before they would do anything.
Thier idea all along is to get internet up and running and continue to drive people away from Sat ... if thats so, why bother with a merger if your just going to disban in anyways.
Thats no different than when att bought D* and did NOTHING to try to improve it.

Nope, nothing happening here for awhile.

I doubt it also, the only advantage to do a deal is better contract deals with the Broadcasters/Cable Channels because of how many subscribers a merged company would have.

But, neither service is compatible with each other, so no advantage there, neither company is planing/building/launching any new Satellites, have to design new boxes for their new combined Sat Service (neither company is doing that for their existing service expect maybe a Android type box from Dish and maybe a Joey 4, DirecTV-nada).

It would costs a lot to merge the two, it will also cost a lot after the merger, why put out good money on companies still losing subs.

Lastly, if High Speed comes to the Rural Areas, that would accelerate the loss of Satellite Subs, where just in the last 6 years, Dish and DirecTV have lost roughly 14 million, DirecTV about 8-10 million, Dish about 5 million.

 

[NashGuy]

I doubt it also, the only advantage to do a deal is better contract deals with the Broadcasters/Cable Channels because of how many subscribers a merged company would have.

But, neither service is compatible with each other, so no advantage there, neither company is planing/building/launching any new Satellites, have to design new boxes for their new combined Sat Service (neither company is doing that for their existing service expect maybe a Android type box from Dish and maybe a Joey 4, DirecTV-nada).

It would costs a lot to merge the two, it will also cost a lot after the merger, why put out good money on companies still losing subs.

Lastly, if High Speed comes to the Rural Areas, that would accelerate the loss of Satellite Subs, where just in the last 6 years, Dish and DirecTV have lost roughly 14 million, DirecTV about 8-10 million, Dish about 5 million.

Merging two very similar businesses which are direct competitors achieves two things. First, it reduces competition and therefore increases pricing power in the market. (This is the main issue that the DOJ would have with this proposed merger; they should definitely require remedies to avoid price gouging, at least in rural zip codes where other pay TV options are much less likely to exist.) Second, the merger would improve economies of scale and therefore reduce overall costs, e.g. negotiate better channel carriage rates thanks to a larger customer base, cut redundant employee costs in areas like marketing, customer support, etc.

I would imagine that the deal would be structured so that AT&T and DISH form a new privately held joint venture company (maybe 60% owned by AT&T and 40% by DISH, but with concessions to DISH/Ergen to give them an equal or even greater voice in terms of management) -- in other words, something similar to what AT&T and TPG did when DirecTV was spun off last year.

Existing customers wouldn't see any significant changes: same equipment, same channel packages, although maybe the company branding on their bill and the website would change. For new customers, I expect that they would use a single brand (whether DirecTV or DISH or some new name) with one set of channel packages (maybe DTV's, maybe DISH's, maybe some new set), one line of receivers (almost certainly the more advanced Hopper line), with all new dishes aimed by default at whichever constellation of sats is determined to be the preferred fleet. (I'd guess that would be DTV's since their fleet should last longer, probably until 2030 at least. IIRC, DTV's fleet is also positioned higher in the sky and therefore a bit less prone to rain fade and obstruction from tall trees and buildings.)

 

[SamCdbs]

If this is truly a merger, then whatever. I agree that the government would look long and hard at it, as there are still, and IMHO, always will be, places where the only TV providers are DBS and a crappy cable company.

The last deal was really a merger in name only. It was DISH buying DirecTV. As the two have totally different customer bases in mind and thus totally different marketing plans, any takeover of one by the other would be foolish.

I certainly have no desire to pay for DISH. Why would I?

 

[navychop]

Sad news. But maybe Charlie is looking to cash out. Maybe. More sad news.

I just got into a two year contract. So maybe this will be decided by then and I’ll review my options.

 

[NashGuy]

Sad news. But maybe Charlie is looking to cash out. Maybe. More sad news.

Well, as the article below explains, it makes sense for DISH to separate their legacy pay TV business from their fledgling 5G wireless business. But reports are that Charlie is insisting that he'd retain a significant voice in how the combined TV business is run, even though he'd be a minority owner.

DISH Stock: Directv Merger Rumors Supported By Internal Move

News of merger between DISH Networks and DIRECTV surfaced again. Past mergers have failed due to antitrust concerns. Find out my take here.

seekingalpha.com

If I had to guess, I'd bet that the combined satellite TV business operates under the DISH brand. At this point, after what AT&T did to DirecTV, I'd say DISH probably has more brand equity. They're definitely doing a better job of holding onto their customers the past couple years than DTV has done, and DTV is definitely in for more big losses next year after they lose NFL Sunday Ticket. And I could see that being a concession Ergen fights for; DISH has always been his baby and I can see him wanting to see his legacy live on with the DISH brand surviving. I don't think anyone at DTV/AT&T has that kind of emotional investment in the DTV brand.

And, as I've said before, I suspect that the combined business would keep using the more modern DISH hardware (Hopper and Joey) for new customers rather than the clunky old DTV Genie units, although I can imagine that each current-gen model DISH receiver might be produced in two versions going forward: one compatible with dishes aimed at the existing DISH fleet of sats, and one version compatible with dishes aimed at the DTV fleet of sats. Only change existing DTV satellite subs would likely see is that the on-screen DTV logo gets replaced with a DISH logo and their billing gets migrated over to the DISH system.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have been told before that the DISH Hardware can receive DIRECTV with a software update. (Of course you would need a new DISH.)

Having both DISH and DIRECTV in the past I wouldn't want to give up my Hopper. I have tested a lot of equipment and there is NOTHING better out there than a Dish Hopper 3.

 

[NashGuy]

I have been told before that the DISH Hardware can receive DIRECTV with a software update. (Of course you would need a new DISH.)

Having both DISH and DIRECTV in the past I wouldn't want to give up my Hopper. I have tested a lot of equipment and there is NOTHING better out there than a Dish Hopper 3.

Ah, good to know. I didn't know if DISH hardware would be compatible with DTV dishes/signals with just a software update or not. That being the case would definitely help keep their hardware costs down and simplify equipment management.

As I've said before, I imagine that the default set-up for new customers would be to use a DTV-style dish aimed at the DTV fleet of sats combined with DISH-style Hopper and Joey receivers. Hopefully the superior HD picture quality of DTV would be preserved. Anyone know how many years of operation the DISH fleet of sats is expected to have? The most recent DTV sat launched in June 2019 and should be operational at least through 2030. I think DISH's most recent two sats launched in 2010.

There would probably be some new set of channel packages rolled out but my guess is that they'd be structured and priced closer to what DISH currently offers than what DTV has. And by the time that happens, I expect that the Bally Sports RSNs will have launched as a standalone streaming service, so those channels would be sold by the combined DISH/DTV service but as a la carte add-ons to the new base package(s), much the way HBO Max and Showtime are already sold.

 

[Bruce]

As I've said before, I imagine that the default set-up for new customers would be to use a DTV-style dish aimed at the DTV fleet of sats combined with DISH-style Hopper and Joey receivers. Hopefully the superior HD picture quality of DTV would be preserved. Anyone know how many years of operation the DISH fleet of sats is expected to have? The most recent DTV sat launched in June 2019 and should be operational at least through 2030. I think DISH's most recent two sats launched in 2010.

Yep, Echostar 15, this is on it’s wiki page-Mission Duration 15 Years Planned

EchoStar XV - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[goaliebob99]

I have been told before that the DISH Hardware can receive DIRECTV with a software update. (Of course you would need a new DISH.)

Having both DISH and DIRECTV in the past I wouldn't want to give up my Hopper. I have tested a lot of equipment and there is NOTHING better out there than a Dish Hopper 3.

I'm curious about the technical back end. Do they shut down the DirecTV RUF's that were on the ATT backbone? It's been a few years since I worked at a RUF but I am assuming all that infrastructure stayed when DirecTV separated given that ATT had a controlling interest. Would the new Dish/DirecTV continue to use KA and clear space on KU from Dish's spot beams to add more content? If you keep KA, then you keep the DirecTV Rufs and shut down the Dish ones.

Do they give up the eastern arch, or parts of 129 to resell to the networks who just lost a bunch of spectrum to the C-band auction? Lots could be done with this. I am assuming a hybrid system would be 99,101, 103 110, 119, leaving the rest of the fleet for commercial use now that you have your core slots.

I'm really curious about how this gets executed and what gets divided up!

 

[dtgoodtonid]

Good morning one more link this morning

DISH, DirecTV: Renewed merger talks

AT&T’s DirecTV and Charlie Ergen’s DISH Network have reportedly resumed talks regarding merging their DTH operations - and a deal could be close. The

advanced-television.com

If there is such a thing as a content providers lobby I know where they're spending their money. They can't deal with Charlie with 8.5 million cards, imagine how much they are looking forward to him having 23 million cards to play!

 

[NashGuy]

I'm curious about the technical back end. Do they shut down the DirecTV RUF's that were on the ATT backbone? It's been a few years since I worked at a RUF but I am assuming all that infrastructure stayed when DirecTV separated given that ATT had a controlling interest. Would the new Dish/DirecTV continue to use KA and clear space on KU from Dish's spot beams to add more content? If you keep KA, then you keep the DirecTV Rufs and shut down the Dish ones.

Do they give up the eastern arch, or parts of 129 to resell to the networks who just lost a bunch of spectrum to the C-band auction? Lots could be done with this. I am assuming a hybrid system would be 99,101, 103 110, 119, leaving the rest of the fleet for commercial use now that you have your core slots.

I'm really curious about how this gets executed and what gets divided up!

Whatever the might do with their satellites, I'm sure they'd want to minimize the number of existing customers who would require a re-install (i.e. new dish, or re-aimed existing dish) to continue receiving service. The company would likely have to offer that free of charge, and without a new contract in place, and that's costly to do.

 

[navychop]

Perhaps the Hopper Plus will have significant extra memory and other circuitry to facilitate using more satellites and methods- as well as streaming.

But with streaming and current Dish satellites, I just don’t see the pressure to merge. Total number of subscribers might not mean as much as it used to.

Improvements? How about a weather channel that did, oh, I don’t know- WEATHER? Remember when Weather Nation was supposed to provide that while Weather Channel kept with fluff? That little purchase put paid to that idea.

 

[NashGuy]

Yep, Echostar 15, this is on it’s wiki page-Mission Duration 15 Years Planned

EchoStar XV - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hmm. So in as little as 4 years, the existing DISH system could be facing a real crunch. Which is why I would expect the combined company to use the DTV sats as much as possible.

Can a single dish reliably get signals from some combination of DTV and DISH sats at the same time? Or are those arcs positioned too far apart in the sky?