AT&T wants $$$ from Dish
AT&T Demands Payment On $500 Million DISH Note; So Does This Mean No Deal? - washingtonpost.com
AT&T Demands Payment On $500 Million DISH Note; So Does This Mean No Deal? - washingtonpost.com
AT&T Demands Payment On $500 Million DISH Note
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AT&T Demands Payment On $500 Million DISH Note; So Does This Mean No Deal?
By Joseph Weisenthal - Tue 17 Jun 2008 07:26 PM PST
AT&T Demands Payment On $500 Million DISH Note; So Does This Mean No Deal? | paidContent.org
Given the old rumors that AT&T (NYSE: T) might eventually acquire DISH, this filing after the bell should’ve jumped out a little more… In it, DISH says AT&T is requiring it to pay back a $500 million note due July 2010. The note would have converted to DISH shares at $60.25, but with those shares currently trading at $33.02, AT&T isn’t waiting around. Bernstein Analyst Craig Moffett titles a note on this development: “Invoking the Pre-Nup is Rarely a Prelude to Love.”
He says the $500 million note was first acquired in 2003, as part of AT&T’s strategic resale agreement with DISH (then EchoStar). There’s been some lingering speculation that AT&T could buy Dish outright, but Moffett suspects this is the final nail in that coffin. What’s more, this could indicate that any strategic relationship is on the way out too. The winner: DISH rival DirecTV (NYSE: DTV). AT&T went exclusively with DISH last year, per contractual obligations, but it can revisit things in October, and it may decide to change ships entirely.
His conclusion: “If AT&T were to consolidate its relationship around DirecTV – which, as we have noted before has a stronger product, and a stronger brand – then DirecTV would have a clean sweep of the RBOC relationships, as it would then have exclusives with AT&T, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Qwest. Conversely, Dish Network would be left with relationships only with a handful of smaller rural TelCos (and one relatively large one, in Embarq) at a time when it is already lagging badly behind DirecTV in gross addition share.”
By Joseph Weisenthal - Tue 17 Jun 2008 07:26 PM PST
AT&T Demands Payment On $500 Million DISH Note; So Does This Mean No Deal? | paidContent.org
Given the old rumors that AT&T (NYSE: T) might eventually acquire DISH, this filing after the bell should’ve jumped out a little more… In it, DISH says AT&T is requiring it to pay back a $500 million note due July 2010. The note would have converted to DISH shares at $60.25, but with those shares currently trading at $33.02, AT&T isn’t waiting around. Bernstein Analyst Craig Moffett titles a note on this development: “Invoking the Pre-Nup is Rarely a Prelude to Love.”
He says the $500 million note was first acquired in 2003, as part of AT&T’s strategic resale agreement with DISH (then EchoStar). There’s been some lingering speculation that AT&T could buy Dish outright, but Moffett suspects this is the final nail in that coffin. What’s more, this could indicate that any strategic relationship is on the way out too. The winner: DISH rival DirecTV (NYSE: DTV). AT&T went exclusively with DISH last year, per contractual obligations, but it can revisit things in October, and it may decide to change ships entirely.
His conclusion: “If AT&T were to consolidate its relationship around DirecTV – which, as we have noted before has a stronger product, and a stronger brand – then DirecTV would have a clean sweep of the RBOC relationships, as it would then have exclusives with AT&T, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Qwest. Conversely, Dish Network would be left with relationships only with a handful of smaller rural TelCos (and one relatively large one, in Embarq) at a time when it is already lagging badly behind DirecTV in gross addition share.”
Scott, Jeremy beat you by about 6 hours.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/139183-t-wants-dish.html
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/139183-t-wants-dish.html
IIRC, when AT&T announced they were staying with E* it was mentioned that there were contract issues that made them do it for this year, and then when that issue was nolonger a factor they would reevaluate who, if any, they would partner with.
In San Francisco, Dish will not install on buildings taller than 2 stories.
Most of those orders got through AT&T or third party.
That would be a huge number just in the Bay Area.
4 family members here had to sign-up through AT&T just because of that (I used third party).
YEs even the skyreport.com said that ATT wanting their 500million back is a sign of a divorce rather than a marriage between ATT & DISH. IT looks like they will be going with DIRECTV next year for all their bundles. ON the upside it means another merger/buyout rumor is put to rest. THis means DISH will have to really rethink their whole customer service approach and offer even more perks if they want to attract new subs and keep the old ones. Maybe an elimination of some of their miscellaneous fees. I mean DISH had the worst two quarters in a row in their company's history , but their profits rose? Got to be from all the miscellaneous fees that they came up with this last few years. THey really need to compete if ATT dumps them for DIRECTV. Maybe this will be the kick in the ass that Charlie needs to start adding more hd and attracting more new subs.
That's my thinking too.... Too much would change on the customer's end. As petty as it seems, something like all new channel numbers, not to mention different hardware, would be a nightmare for ATT to deal with.
They didn't swap out any of the DirecTV based Bellsouth/AT&T customers when that contract ended, just not doing new installs. So the same thing may happen if AT&T goes with D*, E* folks keep what they have but all new installs go to D*.
How much functionality that's in the Homezone offering is missing from the HR2X receivers now? The HR2X's have DVR functions, you can watch pictures from your computer with music if you want, you can remote schedule, you can get VoD content. So they market it with AT&T DSL service and DirecTV and to me it looks the same, what's missing?
The actual integration. It is very hard to work cooperatively with an entity who develops like DIRECTV appears to be flailing at it.
There may or may not be a requirement for OTA that couldn't be reasonably served by DIRECTV's current designs. This is probably fixable. The current Homezone receiver has two OTA/cable inputs.
There is also the nagging issue of not having integrated agile RF distribution. This is also fixable.
There is also some question of whether or not DIRECTV's agreement with TiVo could be extended to a third party like 2wire (or whether or not there is anything TiVo left in there to fuss over).
What actual integration? AT&T provides the standard DSL modem they do now which you can plug a HR2X into.
The HR2X's do support ATSC OTA now with an addtion of a AM21.
The agile RF distribution will become less and less of a desired feature as more and more folks get HDTV sets, nobody's going to want to connect a NTSC signal to their nice new HD set.
Don't understand your Tivo/2Wire comment, why would D* need to contract with 2Wire when their HR2X's do just about all the 2Wire box does now from what I can see?
I think thats good, my ergen is getting a bit of his same medicine, what comes around goes around. He dropped Voom HD, ignored the top tier customers and replaced the 15 Voom channels with weak up converted crap, charges too much now that Voom HD is gone, and in a lawsuit with Tivo and Voom for his behavior. To me they could have had a chance if they used Voom HD to their advantage by including them in the HD package with no extra fees and really created a marketing campaign around better quaity programming. Now they are over priced, low quality HD and to me they will continue to go down hill as more users will choose Directv. Maybe that will finally get him ousted from dish? either that or maybe dish will die a slow death?
as many have said before in the plethora of threads you have posted the same thing in, we all understand that you are pissed that you lost your precious voom and you are crying in your fruit loops, but your drivel is getting tied, boring, and old.
Do us all a favor and go over to Direct already, PLEASE!
At the rate AT&T is moving, I think they might in some time just completely ditch their satellite deals. Frankly, they don't need it. There's a market for some of us (I won't be moving away from dish as long as we have a vacation house that we can take boxes to when on vacation).. but yeah.
The corporate ownership structure of AT&T has changed significantly since 2003. Plans made back in 2003 might not fit with new planning for 2009 and beyond. This could just be more negotiating ploys by AT&T.
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