Should Directv buy DISH?

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satjay

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Intresting in that the writer is seeing the day coming soon when Direct will start to lose subs I believe he says. From the meger standpoint, I think this comes up every couple years
 
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CK SatGuy

Formerly ckhalil18
Feb 7, 2011
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Echostar spun off from Dish Network back in 2008. Charlie Ergen is the CEO of both companies. I doubt that the two companies will ever merge but hey, who knows. It could happen, right?
 

markfp-1

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Feb 13, 2005
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I don't think so, competition is a great thing. It wasn't until Dish started offering free HD that DirecTV did too. If there's only one company, it's pretty much free to raise rates or do whatever it wants knowing there's no competition. Besides, the government would consider it a monopoly and would allow such a sale. Yes, I know there's cable or FIOS, but I'm only referring to satellite service.
 

ZoSo925

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Sirius and XM were able to pull it off, and their excuse was competition with iPod/MP3, HD Radio, Internet Streaming..etc I just read before Holiday 2011, new world of Sirius-XM 2.0 will be out

With Cable and FiOS TV, having 1 major Satellite company should not really be looked as a monopoly if Sirius-XM did it.


These corporate pig companies these days, anything is possible. Just the thought of AT&T owning T-Mobile, Hughes,Echo Star, Dish Network is mind blowing. AT&T stated last year they were spending multi Billions advancing their services. They have lot of money to play and spend and it looks like eating up other companies is part of it.
 
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jwgreen68

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May 19, 2008
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ZoSo925 said:
Sirius and XM were able to pull it off, and their excuse was competition with iPod/MP3, HD Radio, Internet Streaming..etc I just read before Holiday 2011, new world of Sirius-XM 2.0 will be out

With Cable and FiOS TV, having 1 major Satellite company should not really be looked as a monopoly if Sirius-XM did it.

These corporate pig companies these days, anything is possible. Just the thought of AT&T owning T-Mobile, Hughes,Echo Star, Dish Network is mind blowing. AT&T stated last year they were spending multi Billions advancing their services. They have lot of money to play and spend and it looks like eating up other companies is part of it.

But if you have 1 satellite company servicing the rural communities then it does become a monopoly. If Hog Fat, Arkansas, population 500, doesn't have access to cable, and their only option is satellite, then there's nothing to prevent satellite from gouging them.
 

shodobe

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Sep 8, 2003
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If you live in areas that have no access to cable or FIOS, then it becomes a complete monopoly. This has nothing to do with XM/Sirius because of deeper implications. With those out there that jumped from cableto FIOS to sat because of offers and free this and that, then you don't really care. For me who has no options then it becomes a matter of pure greed.
 

Scott Greczkowski

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While I agree it would be GOOD for both companies to merge, from their standpoint as a consumer I think it would be bad.

Look at SiriusXM for example...

But beyond that I feel that Satellite would become boring if only one company ruled everything. The great thing now is people have a choice, if you love sports go to DIRECTV, if you don't like sports DISH is your best bet.

If there was a combined company the customer would not benefit... do you honestly think customers bills would drop because they are saving so much money by being combined? I don't either.

With two companies they can battle and keep on expanding and improving to provide the best product they can, if there is no competition there is no reason to try making things better.

Satellite would be awfully dull if there was only one company.

There will be a day when Charlie Ergen does not own DISH, and no matter if you like him or don't you got to admit he keeps everyone on their toes.
 

spaceghost

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Apr 21, 2008
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Sirius and XM were able to pull it off, and their excuse was competition with iPod/MP3, HD Radio, Internet Streaming..etc I just read before Holiday 2011, new world of Sirius-XM 2.0 will be out

With Cable and FiOS TV, having 1 major Satellite company should not really be looked as a monopoly if Sirius-XM did it.


These corporate pig companies these days, anything is possible. Just the thought of AT&T owning T-Mobile, Hughes,Echo Star, Dish Network is mind blowing. AT&T stated last year they were spending multi Billions advancing their services. They have lot of money to play and spend and it looks like eating up other companies is part of it.

XM/Sirius were able to get it passed because both showed that neither would be able to survive if they continued with them competing against each other. It bothers me quite a bit with these large companies keep eating each other up, especially when its companies who completely ignore customer service.
 

infanati

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Aug 22, 2010
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I don't think it would be a good idea from a business stand point. Maybe back when DISH tried to buy DirecTV it would have been ok - but I don't see the benefit other than possibly lowering retailer subsidies and subscriber acquisition costs. DISH has been making a lot of moves in the past 3-4 months and regardless of the goal/outcome for those moves... an acquisition of the main DBS competitor would only serve to bog that down (or derail that altogether). Besides, DirecTV has already demonstrated it does not care about providing the best value to their customers (just their shareholders).

Personally, my only thing is I trust the leadership at DISH more than I do the leadership at DirecTV. I still think White is too "green" in the industry. And Scott said it best - Charlie does have a habit of keeping everyone on his toes ;)
 

Jimbo

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Scott Greczkowski said:
While I agree it would be GOOD for both companies to merge, from their standpoint as a consumer I think it would be bad.

Look at SiriusXM for example...

But beyond that I feel that Satellite would become boring if only one company ruled everything. The great thing now is people have a choice, if you love sports go to DIRECTV, if you don't like sports DISH is your best bet.

If there was a combined company the customer would not benefit... do you honestly think customers bills would drop because they are saving so much money by being combined? I don't either.

With two companies they can battle and keep on expanding and improving to provide the best product they can, if there is no competition there is no reason to try making things better.

Satellite would be awfully dull if there was only one company.

There will be a day when Charlie Ergen does not own DISH, and no matter if you like him or don't you got to admit he keeps everyone on their toes.

Excellent post !

Sent from my Samsung Epic using SatelliteGuys
 

SamCdbs

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This is not happening. SSR and XM are a different deal. At its simplest terms, they were able to convince the government (correctly, IMHO) that really there was only a market for one SR service, and sat radio is a luxury item. For most people TV is not really a luxury item, particularly the millions of people outside the OTA range of "local" stations. The cell phone merger is likewise different. It still leaves, in cell phone terms, multiple competitors, and in phone terms, more still. In a DBS merger, most people will have two choices, DBS and one and only one cableco. For many that will be one, living outside the reach of cable, and for many more, including me, a defacto one, as the local cableco is comically inept.

DirecTV and DISH compete with the cableco and each other. This is a pro-consumer situation.
 

ZoSo925

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Aug 31, 2009
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I tend to forget there are less fortunate people out there. Having been spoiled with Cable Speed Internet for 10 years it's hard to imagine at times there are still people stuck with only 56k Modem or slower speeds in America.
 

JerseyMatt

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Sep 17, 2010
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Siri-XM is the poster child for why this shouldn't happen. After their merger prices went up, quality (playlist wise) of the channels went down, and there has been close to zero as far as new hardware offerings and innovation. Hell, three years after the merger and you still can't put a Siri and XM radio on the same account, you have to have two separate accounts and pay full price for both.
 

Joe Diamond

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May 3, 2004
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Put it in terms that most can relate to. What if there were NO Wendy's, Burger King, etc.,just McDonalds?

Never used those guys,

When installing I would swap cavity work (wall fish work) or slave lines for lunch or dinner.

But I get your drift and see another explanation. If all the choices are identical why shop? As an installer I noticed changes from E to D were based on : #1 = some specific channel or program offering #2 = preference for some hardware feature seen at some other customer location. #3 = credit or subscription issues.

HBO = HBO and subscribers do not care how the signal arrives. Until recently they did not care how much it cost.

Joe
 
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