[James Long]

Absent interest from DIRECTV or DISH, that leaves streaming. You couldn't reasonably work with a cable company since they don't cover enough ground.

Number of subscribers and potential subscribers is irrelevant. What matters is the billions of dollars the winner pays the NFL. Nothing personal, just business.

 

[Bender The Lab]

The official subscriber numbers for DIRECTV DBS haven't been shared in quite a while (since the regrouping of DIRECTV as a "non-core asset"). It is unclear where the numbers that Statista uses came from and whether or not they included DIRECTV Stream (it seems likely that they do). In Q4 2021, DIRECTV was estimated to be bleeding between 400,000 and 600,000 customers per quarter so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the number, if accurate, is now closer to 13.5 million today (again, this probably includes DIRECTV Stream that appears to be taking an increasing bite out the DBS subscriber base).I'm talking specifically about those who would pay for NFLST only if they were able to get it through DIRECTV DBS service.

The numbers at Statista combine the Satellite Service, Streaming and the stubborn customers that will not leave Uverse, which is rumored to be 2-3 million ( it had as many as 6 million video subs at one time).

So if stream has 2 million ( which is a bad number considering YTTV has 5 million, Hulu Live has 4 million and neither has the RSNs), uverse has 2 million, that leave DirecTV Sat Service with 10 million, which sounds correct if subs are leaving 400-600,000 a quarter, which was reported the first two quarters of 2021, a million combined left.

Now the question is, how many customers can the Satellite part of DirecTV lose before it is no longer profitable.

I give it 5 years at the most, 10 if there is a merger ( by then the Satellites themselves will be dying).

Also, I am not so sure a merger is in the cards, Dish is more focused on their 5G network thing, does not have much cash on hand, 3 billion ( a 29.26% decline year-over-year.) vs liabilities over 33 billion (which is a 32.09% increase year-over-year).

What bank is going to loan Dish money towards this merger ( at least enough to cover TPG’s share), specially towards a company that is slowly dying, Dish would have to put up a lot of capital to make the banks happy, which it does not have right now.

Then we have all the costs after a merger.

DISH Network Total Liabilities 2010-2022 | DISH

DISH Network total liabilities from 2010 to 2022. Total liabilities can be defined as the total value of all possible claims against the corporation. <ul style='margin-top:10px;'> <li>DISH Network total liabilities for the quarter ending March 31, 2022 were...

www.macrotrends.net

 

[raott]

If they care so much about their financial self-interest why do they subscribe to something they can't afford in the first place? Expecting endless wall to wall discounts is ridiculous and behaving like a woman scorned when the discount well dries up is ludicrous.

Who says they cannot afford it? You are the one who trumpets paying full asking price. I'd look at thyself and foolish financial stewardship, rather than at others.

 

[MysteryMan]

Who says they cannot afford it? You are the one who trumpets paying full asking price. I'd look at thyself and foolish financial stewardship, rather than at others.

Watch my fingers, I'm going to type slow for you. There's nothing wrong with asking for a discount. It's the greedy "discount mongers" I dislike. They think they're "entitled" to endless huge wall to wall discounts and then come here and behave like a woman scorned when the discount well dries up. That's ludicrous! As for myself, I have deep pockets and can well afford what you call my foolish financial stewardship.

 

[James Long]

I assume you have an arbitrary line where a certain level of discount is acceptable to request and any more is "mongering"? Not sure why you have to insult women in your responses.

DIRECTV has made the requested discount part of their pricing structure. I would agree that $50-$60 off a monthly bill is ridiculous, but DIRECTV has a long running company habit of giving that level of discount. DIRECTV has a reputation as being the "will haggle" provider. One might get $10-$20 off with another provider (usually tied to renewing a commitment or something that saves the company money such as paperless billing and auto-pay). $50-$60 off just illustrates how much "wiggle room" there is in DIRECTV pricing.

I'd like to see what DIRECTV could do with "no haggle pricing". They could probably forgo an annual price increase one year if they stopped doing the deep discounts for certain customers. But the price sensitive subscribers would probably want the discounts they are getting today. Moving to "no haggle" after so many years of offering deep discounts would take a lot of PR to sell the concept to customers.

 

[MysteryMan]

I assume you have an arbitrary line where a certain level of discount is acceptable to request and any more is "mongering"? Not sure why you have to insult women in your responses.

DIRECTV has made the requested discount part of their pricing structure. I would agree that $50-$60 off a monthly bill is ridiculous, but DIRECTV has a long running company habit of giving that level of discount. DIRECTV has a reputation as being the "will haggle" provider. One might get $10-$20 off with another provider (usually tied to renewing a commitment or something that saves the company money such as paperless billing and auto-pay). $50-$60 off just illustrates how much "wiggle room" there is in DIRECTV pricing.

I'd like to see what DIRECTV could do with "no haggle pricing". They could probably forgo an annual price increase one year if they stopped doing the deep discounts for certain customers. But the price sensitive subscribers would probably want the discounts they are getting today. Moving to "no haggle" after so many years of offering deep discounts would take a lot of PR to sell the concept to customers.

Get real Jim. We both know I have never bowed to political correctness nor will I ever. There's a phrase, "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned". And that's exactly how the "discount mongers" behave when they come here and complain. They say things like "For two years DIRECTV gave me $80.00 off my bill plus free Sunday Ticket. Now they're telling me the best they can do is $60.00 off my bill and no free Sunday Ticket" then rant like they're the injured party. Like I said, they think they're "entitled" to endless huge wall to wall discounts.

 

[wmb]

Get real Jim. We both know I have never bowed to political correctness nor will I ever. There's a phrase, "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned". And that's exactly how the "discount mongers" behave when they come here and complain. They say things like "For two years DIRECTV gave me $80.00 off my bill plus free Sunday Ticket. Now they're telling me the best they can do is $60.00 off my bill and no free Sunday Ticket" then rant like they're the injured party. Like I said, they think they're "entitled" to endless huge wall to wall discounts.

I have no problem paying full price. Most everything I get I pay full price for.

I have a problem overpaying for something. I kept DirecTV for about 6 months after losing a $75 a month discount. My bill without it was about $150 with the middle package, receivers, and fees. It was a no brainer to cancel DirecTV and go to the $40 a month DirecTV Now package with all the channels we watched. Heck, they gave me an Apple TV for buying a 3 month package.

I guess I was ‘scorned.’ If that’s what you want to call it. I guess I was entitled to save money.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MysteryMan]

I have no problem paying full price. Most everything I get I pay full price for.

I have a problem overpaying for something. I kept DirecTV for about 6 months after losing a $75 a month discount. My bill without it was about $150 with the middle package, receivers, and fees. It was a no brainer to cancel DirecTV and go to the $40 a month DirecTV Now package with all the channels we watched. Heck, they gave me an Apple TV for buying a 3 month package.

I guess I was ‘scorned.’ If that’s what you want to call it. I guess I was entitled to save money.


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If you believe you were over paying then you did what was best for you and there is nothing wrong with that. That said, if you think a DIRECTV package is overpriced then you should have never subscribed to it in the first place.

 

[b4pjoe]

I think the only reason people feel "scorned" is because the way they give out discounts is pretty much helter skelter. One person in the discount thread might claim they got a $90 per month discount and others may be offered a $20 discount or nothing. They call them "loyalty" discounts but they pretty much have nothing to do with a persons "loyalty" to DirecTV. It seems to just be the luck of the draw so people may vent when they get less or nothing while others are getting large discounts. It's human nature.

 

[MysteryMan]

I think the only reason people feel "scorned" is because the way they give out discounts is pretty much helter skelter. One person in the discount thread might claim they got a $90 per month discount and others may be offered a $20 discount or nothing. They call them "loyalty" discounts but they pretty much have nothing to do with a persons "loyalty" to DirecTV. It seems to just be the luck of the draw so people may vent when they get less or nothing while others are getting large discounts. It's human nature.

What you post is true. But something offered is better than nothing offered and to that I say "Never look a gift horse in the mouth"!

 

[harsh]

Number of subscribers and potential subscribers is irrelevant. What matters is the billions of dollars the winner pays the NFL. Nothing personal, just business.

If there aren't enough subscribers to support the product, it isn't going to make money for the distributor. DIRECTV was starting to squirm with a lot more customers than they have now and the price is more than double what it used to be just for the rights.

 

[harsh]

Now the question is, how many customers can the Satellite part of DirecTV lose before it is no longer profitable.

I'd imagine DIRECTV's break even was somewhere around 18-20 million customers (maybe more as it was a big new customer draw) from which to capture the necessary number of NFLST subscribers. Now the price for the NFLST rights is going up by 150% or more.

Even if you believe that break even was closer to 15 million, no one conventional MVPD has enough customers or necessary service area to cover that without streaming.

 

[harsh]

That said, if you think a DIRECTV package is overpriced then you should have never subscribed to it in the first place.

To be fair, DIRECTV isn't entirely forthcoming about long-term pricing at the point of subscription. That All is not Included in the All Included bundles is more than a little misleading.

The package price of Ultimate goes up by more than 77% in the second year and unlike many other services, you can't just walk away.

 

[wmb]

Even if you believe that break even was closer to 15 million, no one conventional MVPD has enough customers or necessary service area to cover that without streaming.

But DirecTV now has streaming.

We tend to think of DirecTV as just satellite, but we all know they have the streaming component as well. They could have used NFL Sunday Ticket as they always had… customer acquisition and retention tool across both platforms.

Who knowns, if they went that route, instead of questions of the timeline for DirecTV’s demise, the discussion would be the plans for transitioning to streaming.


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[harsh]

But DirecTV now has streaming.

Bully for DIRECTV. If YTTV can't kill it at $65/month, what made DIRECTV think they could storm the marketplace at $105? Is there really $40 worth of extra content? Wait, no 4K?

Unfortunately many of the DIRECTV Stream subscriptions have come at the expense of the DIRECTV DBS subscriber base so the net gain in subscribers is not much and the monthly revenue is surely reduced (ignoring DIRECTV DBS's current retention fest).

 

[James Long]

Get real Jim. We both know I have never bowed to political correctness nor will I ever.

Thanks. I thought you might be posting just to troll. You just proved it. Moving on to rational posters ....

 

[James Long]

If there aren't enough subscribers to support the product, it isn't going to make money for the distributor.

You said that it couldn't be a cable operator since they don't cover enough ground. Yet the largest cable operator has more subscribers than DIRECTV. So it isn't about "ground". It is about a distributor believing that having Sunday Ticket is worth the billions per year in fees paid to the NFL.

 

[JoeTheDragon]

Yet the largest cable operator has more subscribers than DIRECTV

Are they counting internet subs in that number?

 

[James Long]

We tend to think of DirecTV as just satellite, but we all know they have the streaming component as well. They could have used NFL Sunday Ticket as they always had… customer acquisition and retention tool across both platforms.

They tried. There was a point a couple years ago where either the NFL or DIRECTV could have walked away from the current deal and either negotiate a new deal (with DIRECTV wanting to add streaming and the NFL wanting more money) or end carriage. The NFL and DIRECTV agreed to finish out the contract. DIRECTV did not want to pay more and the NFL didn't want to lose the $1.5 billion they were receiving.

 

[James Long]

Are they counting internet subs in that number?

Cable TV subs. Internet subscriptions are higher but the largest cable provider has more TV subscriptions than DIRECTV (including non-satellite DIRECTV). Granted Xfinity became the largest while losing millions of subscribers - but DIRECTV passed them on the way down losing more subscribers.

Xfinity could be a good partner for the NFL - serving their own "cable" markets as well as the rest of the country via streaming. They want to launch a nationwide streaming service. Why not use NFL ST to pull in customers?