DirecTV presents to Morgan Stanley, May 14th, 8:45am

Listening to replay now... will pick out some points. Interview with Pat Doyle, CFO

40% of user base has at least one advanced product.

 

"D11 will go into service later in the summer"

we'll be able to "easily do 130/140 HD channels"

 

talking about the Bell South loss as a marketing partner... how to pick up customers in those markets in spite of that loss

 

Delevering... more cash, what to do with it - wants to stay at 2.5-3.5x range. Will still use leverage and will still try to return cash to shareholders via repurchases, dividends, etc.

 

Talking about owning the service network - wants to be more connected. Wants to make a "quantum leap in customer service". Going to have a big enough piece of that network to be able to improve the areas that they outsource.

 

talking about CAPEX. STB costs to decline. Mentioned D12 in '09. After these costs go away their CAPEX will improve.

 

DoD - Will formally come out of beta and launch at end of quarter. 3000 titles today. Will be able to push content to the DVR based on customer interests. "It's easy to navigate."

We don't feel like we're at the disadvantage to cable. If our customers want DoD they can upgrade. Download times depend on customer's speed. It's not like they have to wait for it to download for an hour, they can begin watching after a little while.

 

Questions from audience:

Latin America/PanAmerican markets strong - self funding at this point, now focusing on growth and will start investing in it more aggressively. Pushing DVR. HD rollout in some markets will come.

 

Double Play from cable/telecos: not going to bundle with someone we don't have a relationship with to detriment of the customer.

 

Feel good about features in STBs today, connectivity to internet, VOD...

DoD will be fully integrated with the install process... installer won't leave the house without integrating it if the customer has HSI.

 

Wireless data strategy? Continue to look at wireless broadband, but nothing to date has interested them enough to invest in a nationwide network. Interested in talking to companies about technologies to market to customers though with reasonable cost/quality.


That's it!

 

Anyhow, nothing really new in the interview. Pushing content to the DVR can be annoying - using my bandwidth to give me stuff I probably won't want. If internet becomes metered anytime in the future this is a "feature" they will have to be able to turn off.

 

Thank you, tcusta00. I wonder what this will do to their stock price.

 

Since no new information was disseminated, probably nothing

 

The "pushed" content will be coming from the satellites (i.e., overnight recordings, similar to the showcases). Many trailers/clips for DoD titles are already on your box, I believe...and you don't even know it...

 

Really? Because the whole pushed content thing was part of the DoD/internet connected STB discussion.

 

Unless things have changed, this is what Earl said back in the DoD "First Look":

 

Cool - glad it won't eat up our HSI bandwidth. Thanks for the link.

 

Thanks for putting this up and interjecting the fine points.