Ergen Confident Deal Will Get Done

New York -- Likening his current battle with cable companies to standing on the edge of a cliff, EchoStar Communications Corp. chairman Charlie Ergen said that despite speculation that his pending merger with Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV Inc. unit will fail to receive regulatory approvals, he is still convinced that the deal can get done.

'I think that's where we're headed,' Ergen said at the Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association's SkyForum conference here Wednesday. 'Whether it's a 500-foot cliff or a 100-foot cliff, I don't know. Without the bandwidth [as a result of the merger], we won't be able to compete for all 100 million [multichannel-video] homes.'

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