[harsh]

But there may be the odd installation here or there where the installer can't get good line of sight to the DTV sats but they can with the DISH sats, so in those cases they'll go with a traditional DISH installation.

Given the realization that Ka turned out to be a bit of a pain and that DISH has two constellations and smaller dishes, I'd expect things to go to transition slowly to the DISH satellites and DISH STBs.

Given that the installed base of DIRECTV STBs are already rather dated (The HS17 is near to celebrating its fifth birthday) and there is NOTHING on the horizon, I'd expect that much of the installed base is already at the cliff.

The Hopper Plus could represent a big boon to transitioning both services to streaming and it would probably add even more to the DIRECTV experience than it does to the DISH experience.

The real concern is probably what will happen with sports programming.

TPG isn't in the business of running companies. They're in the business of trading companies. Anyone who thought that they were into DIRECTV for the long haul is deluding themselves. Most of the coverage before the deal was careful to point out that the goal was to make DIRECTV a takeover target. DISH surely has the best synergies and they are on the same trajectory in terms of where the future lies.

 

[harsh]

The problem with that plan is that DISH would likely need to build and launch a new satellite in the latter half of this decade and that's an expensive proposition for a business that's slowly dying.

I don't imagine that DISH (or DIRECTV) expects that their DBS products will need to exist much beyond 2026. I would expect that DISH may be able to easily take advantage of existing or leased satellite capacity as they've been doing all along to make that happen. The fact that DIRECTV Ku birds at 110W and 119W could be employed in some capacity on the Western Arc shouldn't be overlooked (although they may not be long for the Belt).

As I wrote before, I'm told that current DISH receivers can be updated via software to work with DTV dishes/sats/signals.

Sure, but will DISH want to do battle with Ka when they have their Ku capacity that is perhaps better located to offer the broadest coverage. DISH is probably better positioned to get rid of MPEG2 than DIRECTV is so raw satellite capacity becomes much less of an issue than it is today.

An argument can be made for the narrow width of the DIRECTV window but I'm dubious that makes as much difference as better shots to the constellations.

 

[harsh]

It would be moronic to phase out Directv instead of Dish when Directv has twice the installed base, and Dish is split between two arcs with duplicate satellite fleets.

Two satellite constellations don't cost a whole lot more than one (mostly electricity) and there are significant advantages to where the DISH satellites are located. It has always been DISH's plan to have two constellations (though the Western Arc was supposed to be considerably further west). MPEG2 is nobody's friend and there's still no deadline from DIRECTV other than losing or upgrading those MPEG2 customers "naturally" while DISH has already eliminated MPEG4 from the Eastern Arc (though some in EA regions are still using the WA constellation).

In four years, I'd imagine things will be pretty grim for satellite TV in general as more and more of the traffic moves to broadband and, hopefully, broadband access also improves. I have a nagging feeling if someone doesn't take control soon, the denser weaving of the LEO blanket may create some situations for all Ku traffic (perhaps worse for Ka).

 

[harsh]

Not sure what will happen but I do know the DTV leadership sent an all employee notice today stating none of this article was true and no discussion was going on about a merger with Dish.

It is pretty easy to see that this speculation was driven almost entirely by what an analyst saw as an effort to split DISH into two entities (remember the Echostar/DISH split?).

That said, it would be difficult to reason that there's a better place for TPG to unload DIRECTV.

 

[harsh]

DIRECTV is still profitable. DISH is reporting much higher profits, but DIRECTV is still making money.

DIRECTV was also saddled with $6 billion in debt as part of the jettison and the service on that isn't cheap.

 

[harsh]

No dish change was needed to remove an orbital location.

The DISH MPEG2 -> AVC transition would need to be completed before that happened, right?

 

[harsh]

It will be very difficult for TPG to unload anything that they only own 30% of.

Yet that would seem to be their responsibility as the controlling partner of the joint venture. It seems even less reasonable that AT&T will take DIRECTV back.

 

[harsh]

This is a nonsensical statement. It's exactly because rooftop dishes are not "software upgradable" and because those millions of dishes aren't going to be replaced that it's so important that DISH receivers can easily be made to work with all those millions of installed DTV dishes.

It isn't nonsensical at all from the satellite reception perspective. If you can program a DISH receiver to handle SWiM, you're almost done. MoCA differences may be a show stopper.

 

[harsh]

Should the two merge, it seems most likely that DISH will spin off its satellite and streaming TV business. A new privately held joint venture company will be formed that is owned by AT&T and the publicly traded company currently named DISH. AT&T may have majority ownership (e.g. 60% to 40%) but DISH (and specifically, Charlie Ergen) would have a greater voice in shaping strategy for the joint venture. (Sound familiar? This is following the same template as the DTV spin-out from AT&T and the formation of their current joint venture with TPG.) TPG will not own any part of the new joint venture. They want to liquidate their holding in DTV.

The failure in this scenario is that it simply replaces TPG with DISH's pay TV operation in controlling DIRECTV. AT&T doesn't get substantially closer to their goal of liquidating DIRECTV.

From the standpoint of the FTC and others who concern themselves with viable competition, DISH pay TV is effectively identical to DIRECTV and competition is effectively removed from the DBS marketplace.

 

[harsh]

I doubt there are any MoCA differences. The SoCs used in both Directv and Dish hardware are industry standard, and almost certainly support both the band Directv uses and the band Dish uses (plus others that neither use)

DISH uses F band in a singular way while DIRECTV uses a couple of different E band configurations. The bandwidth, frequency and any associated filters of the MoCA transciever would need to be under software control and I doubt that this is the case.

 

[harsh]

Shutting down DTV as an ongoing business and simply selling what's left of the useful life of their last remaining satellite(s) wouldn't fetch much cash. That's a worst-case scenario.

Given how much of their satellite fleet that is tied up in uniquely configured Ka, I can't imagine anyone wanting to incorporate that into their engineering model. Still, that's pretty much the bulk of what DIRECTV represents when parted out.

The local receive and uplink facilities could be picked up by someone but who could need them?

 

[harsh]

DIRECTV has not had that level of success encouraging customers leaving satellite to go to what is now DIRECTV Stream.

I'd bet that it has been more successful than you think. There are more than a few dyed-in-the-wool DIRECTV DBS subs who have switched since the product was rebranded.

 

[harsh]

Hopefully TPG being publicly traded will reveal the status of DIRECTV. Then again, AT&T is publicly traded and they have been able to not report the details of the company.

Reporting financials of a joint venture is not required. It isn't a matter of going out of their way to hide them. All of the shareholders of the joint venture are surely well aware of the situation without a public announcement.

 

[harsh]

Got numbers or a gut feeling? The last numbers reported support the statement I made.

Mine is indeed a gut feeling based on anecdotal evidence here and elsewhere. I don't think anyone outside DIRECTV and their shareholders has ever seen numbers for DIRECTV Stream.

I think it is fair to say that DIRECTV Stream is a significant improvement over AT&T TV in most aspects other than price.

 

[harsh]

and for places like sports bars will they do things like NO HDCP needed for live sports?

A properly configured HDMI chain can support any and all HDCP schemes. This is a red herring.

If someone is still using 720p TVs or component video distribution systems, they deserve all the frustration they get.

 

[harsh]

At the end of 2020 AT&T reported 16.5 million "premium TV" customers and 656k "AT&T Now" customers. Where did AT&T TV fit in?

They explained that the AT&T TV customers were counted in the "Premium TV" class. AT&T TV NOW had become a grandfathered offering.

I imagine they might have been trying to discount how much impact that might have if they all left for much cheaper pastures since the NOW gimmick was its very low (sometimes free) price.

 

[harsh]

Who is better suited than DISH to handle DBS customers? Bringing an additional 8 million customers onboard with the synergies that exist would be a win for DISH and, most likely for the former DIRECTV customers.

 

[harsh]

I would be a former DIRECTV customer if this were to happen but I wouldn't consider it a win for me. DISH is the leader for channels going dark among the service providers. Just look at how long DISH customers were without HBO not too long ago.

I reason that the alternative is going to be a non-recoverable bankruptcy so pick your poison. DIRECTV's pricing is putting their product out of reach relative to most alternatives so I suspect that there's going to be a reckoning on caving in to content owner demands as the old 20+ million subscriber fat becomes very, very lean.

Do you envision a better or more likely candidate?

You may be steadfast, but I can recall many claiming that they would drop DIRECTV like a hot potato if AT&T took over.

 

[harsh]

Directv was still generating $4 billion a year in cash for AT&T before it was spun off, so any bankruptcy would be many years away.

IIRC (perhaps incorrectly), TPG's share of the DIRECTV debt was around $6B, that suggests that the combined debt is somewhere around $20B.

You can bet that AT&T and TPG wouldn't be satisfied with using all the returns to pay down the debt.

 

[harsh]

Currently there are 75 local network affiliates and 31 regional sports networks blacked out on DISH due to carriage battles, so yeah, If DISH and DIRECTV merge I'm gone.

One of the reasons that I went with DISH back in the day is that DIRECTV had failed to reach agreement with my local CBS affiliate (KOIN, then owned by Emmis) for six months. It isn't all wine and roses.