AT&T Should sell DIRECTV to DISH

[Tampa8]

You can't compare the Sirus/XM merger to a possible Directv/Dish merger. Other than the fact that they are all four in the media delivery category the main difference is in the logistical differences. DirecTV and Dish cannot directly use each others satellites. The on site equipment (dishes, dvr's, remotes, etc)is not compatable. Plus DirecTV/ATT is not vested in growing the satellite end of the business. As they move into the 5g arena ATT will concentrate on the streaming end of their business. When Sirus and XM merged it was a growing profitable endeavor while satellite TV is a dying and becoming a less profitable endeavor. In 5 years the satellite business as we know it will be a shell of itself. A dinosaur relegated to the "once upon a time" scape heap.

Virtually everything you said is either wrong or is the same as the comparison The two satellite radio satellites were not compatible. The receivers were not compatible. Look it up.
You said - "Plus DirecTV/ATT is not vested in growing the satellite end of the business. As they move into the 5g arena ATT will concentrate on the streaming end of their business." ???? Yes, the whole reason they will not want Directv to begin with, that's the whole premise of the discussion! DISH is not in that position.
You said -"When Sirus and XM merged it was a growing profitable endeavor while satellite TV is a dying and becoming a less profitable endeavor." It's in the links I provided no they were not. I don't know if you were old enough then to have been aware etc, but I was and a big believer as I am now of it. I can tell you no they were not there was a good chance as two companies they would have not made it. Both were weak companies moving towards failure exactly as PBS said of them.

No one can predict is my point if you took the time to read my links that is clear. Even "experts" got it totally wrong. If Satellite TV can remain to be a competitor to Cable, 5G, whatever, with combining companies then I believe the FCC would allow the buyout or merger just as they did with Sirius and XM.
No one knows what At&t will do or try to do, if there is another buyer out there, etc. But I totally dismiss the idea the FCC would never allow them to merge just as they would not let Satellite radio die out without letting them merge. The FCC was proved 100% right to allow that merger as the new company has far more subscribers than the two separate ones did and offers lots more entertainment, better ways to listen etc....

 

[Jimbo]

The internet is overrated..it causes more problems than it solves...I wish the good ole days of 3 channel OTA was all there was...people actually communicated with each other and enjoyed out door activities..no such thing as social media..and you could a cheap local newspaper with well written and researched articles to get your news

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

Almost, but not quite ...

The Internet is not to blame ... Social Media is to blame ....
The internet was great before Social Media took over ....
Now, companies don't even bother to have a website ... just Facebook and what not.

 

[Tampa8]

Almost, but not quite ...

The Internet is not to blame ... Social Media is to blame ....
The internet was great before Social Media took over ....
Now, companies don't even bother to have a website ... just Facebook and what not.

And I don't "do" Facebook so if those companies rely on use of it they have lost me. I have to believe people are going to grow out of Social media as we know it. Different generations so I get that but I don't get wanting anyone to know where you are all the time, telling people what you are doing all day etc. I do know Facebook can be a way to contact people you have lost contact with so it does have some pluses.

 

[edisonprime]

I kinda have mixed feelings about such a merger. One one hand, it might save the satellite TV industry as well as merge all of both companies lineups and technologies; but on the other hand, it leads that much closer to a monopoly, which would leave the company's only competitor being Orby (which is a NON-PLAYER in the market at that).

 

[NashGuy]

I kinda have mixed feelings about such a merger. One one hand, it might save the satellite TV industry as well as merge all of both companies lineups and technologies; but on the other hand, it leads that much closer to a monopoly, which would leave the company's only competitor being Orby (which is a NON-PLAYER in the market at that).

IMO, only way it should be approved is if they agree to some kind of price ceiling for service, at least for customers with addresses designated as rural by the US census. Not a perfect solution but what I'm getting at is that a combined DISH/DTV shouldn't be able to abuse their monopoly position in those areas by increasing their prices or profit margins to be out of line with the cable TV industry outside of satellite distribution (e.g. Charter, Cox, Verizon, etc).

On the plus side, this might give satellite TV customers the chance to use DISH's superior Hopper DVRs with DTV's superior HD picture quality. And get HBO and Cinemax back. And as I think a lot of DTV customers would admit, at least they'd be served by a company that seems to actually care about satellite TV and that isn't as organizationally dysfunctional as AT&T.

 

[edisonprime]

IMO, only way it should be approved is if they agree to some kind of price ceiling for service, at least for customers with addresses designated as rural by the US census. Not a perfect solution but what I'm getting at is that a combined DISH/DTV shouldn't be able to abuse their monopoly position in those areas by increasing their prices or profit margins to be out of line with the cable TV industry outside of satellite distribution (e.g. Charter, Cox, Verizon, etc).

On the plus side, this might give satellite TV customers the chance to use DISH's superior Hopper DVRs with DTV's superior HD picture quality. And get HBO and Cinemax back. And as I think a lot of DTV customers would admit, at least they'd be served by a company that seems to actually care about satellite TV and that isn't as organizationally dysfunctional as AT&T.

I could actually agree to that.

 

[NYDutch]

I kinda have mixed feelings about such a merger. One one hand, it might save the satellite TV industry as well as merge all of both companies lineups and technologies; but on the other hand, it leads that much closer to a monopoly, which would leave the company's only competitor being Orby (which is a NON-PLAYER in the market at that).

I don't know why you think Orby is a "non-player". As the new kid in the market, they're still getting their feet wet while building their subscriber base and expanding their programming, but they are growing in both aspects. There's also the proliferation of streaming services that compete with the traditional cable and satellite carriers, leaving only a relatively small group of rural satellite only subscribers with no available wired Internet service subject to a potential monopoly claim. Many satellite TV subscribers are in areas also served by cable. The road my cottage is on in the southern Adirondacks for example, is fully served by Spectrum cable, yet 9 of the 32 residences, including my cottage, have satellite TV dishes,including 2 Orby dishes installed in the past month.

 

[edisonprime]

IMO, only way it should be approved is if they agree to some kind of price ceiling for service, at least for customers with addresses designated as rural by the US census. Not a perfect solution but what I'm getting at is that a combined DISH/DTV shouldn't be able to abuse their monopoly position in those areas by increasing their prices or profit margins to be out of line with the cable TV industry outside of satellite distribution (e.g. Charter, Cox, Verizon, etc).

On the plus side, this might give satellite TV customers the chance to use DISH's superior Hopper DVRs with DTV's superior HD picture quality. And get HBO and Cinemax back. And as I think a lot of DTV customers would admit, at least they'd be served by a company that seems to actually care about satellite TV and that isn't as organizationally dysfunctional as AT&T.

Not to mention have all the channels from BOTH PROVIDERS available to you, as well as have all the HD channels from both!

 

[Jimbo]

And I don't "do" Facebook so if those companies rely on use of it they have lost me. I have to believe people are going to grow out of Social media as we know it. Different generations so I get that but I don't get wanting anyone to know where you are all the time, telling people what you are doing all day etc. I do know Facebook can be a way to contact people you have lost contact with so it does have some pluses.

I agree with you 1000% ...

 

[NYDutch]

IMO, only way it should be approved is if they agree to some kind of price ceiling for service, at least for customers with addresses designated as rural by the US census. Not a perfect solution but what I'm getting at is that a combined DISH/DTV shouldn't be able to abuse their monopoly position in those areas by increasing their prices or profit margins to be out of line with the cable TV industry outside of satellite distribution (e.g. Charter, Cox, Verizon, etc).

On the plus side, this might give satellite TV customers the chance to use DISH's superior Hopper DVRs with DTV's superior HD picture quality. And get HBO and Cinemax back. And as I think a lot of DTV customers would admit, at least they'd be served by a company that seems to actually care about satellite TV and that isn't as organizationally dysfunctional as AT&T.

I wouldn't object to a price ceiling of course, but I don't think it's necessary. A combined Dish/DTV would have far too many subscribers in cable and streaming served areas to not have competitive package pricing.

 

[goaliebob99]

I wouldn't object to a price ceiling of course, but I don't think it's necessary. A combined Dish/DTV would have far too many subscribers in cable and streaming served areas to not have competitive package pricing.

I don’t think a price ceiling is realistic. You cant control how much the programmers charge, other than negotiating and that would lead to far more disputes!


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[navychop]

Side note: I don’t “do” FB because I DON’T want folks I’m out of touch with to contact me!


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[NYDutch]

I don’t think a price ceiling is realistic. You cant control how much the programmers charge, other than negotiating and that would lead to far more disputes!

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As I said, I don't think a ceiling is necessary. But if one was made a part of the approval process, I think it would need to be a floating ceiling that restricted increases to some factor determined by the prevailing prices among other carriers for instance. A flat price cap would be unworkable for the very reasons you stated.

 

[Soccernut]

And I don't "do" Facebook so if those companies rely on use of it they have lost me. I have to believe people are going to grow out of Social media as we know it. Different generations so I get that but I don't get wanting anyone to know where you are all the time, telling people what you are doing all day etc. I do know Facebook can be a way to contact people you have lost contact with so it does have some pluses.

Same here.

 

[NashGuy]

As I said, I don't think a ceiling is necessary. But if one was made a part of the approval process, I think it would need to be a floating ceiling that restricted increases to some factor determined by the prevailing prices among other carriers for instance. A flat price cap would be unworkable for the very reasons you stated.

I may not have made it clear in my post above but when I endorsed a "price ceiling" what I really meant was some kind of relativistic rule that would govern how high the service could be priced, at least in those areas where "DishDirect" would have no competitors for pay TV (other than virtually unknown Orby, which itself does not carry local channels or several of the most popular cable networks, such as ESPN). I'm sure the DOJ and the two companies could figure out some workable solution, if they were amenable to such a concession.

And I think that there are more Americans who cannot get pay TV service (and therefore broadband either) via a coax, fiber or telco line at their residence than you believe. I think 15% is a plausible estimate based on the imperfect data that I've seen. And 15% of the US population is almost 50 million people (not households, people).

 

[ncted]

And I don't "do" Facebook so if those companies rely on use of it they have lost me. I have to believe people are going to grow out of Social media as we know it. Different generations so I get that but I don't get wanting anyone to know where you are all the time, telling people what you are doing all day etc. I do know Facebook can be a way to contact people you have lost contact with so it does have some pluses.

Well, I joined FB for a while to keep in touch, but it really wasn't what I was using it for in the end. All of the people I reconnected with weren't all that interesting at the end of the day, so I got involved with other things on FB which is how it started ruining my quality of life. That constant engagement in social interactions, even virtual ones, exhausted my otherwise introverted mind. I wasn't as thoughtful in my life and job. My wife and I didn't get along as well as we used to. I was a less content person. After quitting, I am much more even keeled and have better actual relationships and social interactions, and that bleeds over into the few remaining online social networks I participate in, such as Satellite Guys, which I was on for a long time before joining Facebook. The focused nature of the topics here (and staying out of the Pit ) don't seem to affect me in the same way as FB did.

As for the potential merger, I don't think it would be a bad thing. A combined Dish/DirecTV would still have to compete with cable and OTT services in the majority of the US markets, and it really doesn't cost them that much more to connect a rural customer than an urban one, especially considering the rural one is probably more likely to stick around in the long term due to lack of alternatives. I wonder if this is AT&T testing the waters with Wall Street and Dish to see whether a deal would be possible. They still have a lot of debt to pay down.

 

[ncted]

Another viewpoint:

https://www.multichannel.com/news/directv-and-dish-merger-bad-analyst-says

 

[NYDutch]

I may not have made it clear in my post above but when I endorsed a "price ceiling" what I really meant was some kind of relativistic rule that would govern how high the service could be priced, at least in those areas where "DishDirect" would have no competitors for pay TV (other than virtually unknown Orby, which itself does not carry local channels or several of the most popular cable networks, such as ESPN). I'm sure the DOJ and the two companies could figure out some workable solution, if they were amenable to such a concession.

And I think that there are more Americans who cannot get pay TV service (and therefore broadband either) via a coax, fiber or telco line at their residence than you believe. I think 15% is a plausible estimate based on the imperfect data that I've seen. And 15% of the US population is almost 50 million people (not households, people).

I think all that would be needed to cover the rural no options folks would be a requirement that the merged companies cannot do selective pricing based on location. And apparently relatively few people would be affected anyway if this site is to be believed:

"In the United States 99.73% of the population has access to Broadband Internet and the average home download speed is 6.70215 Mbps. 2.97% of the population does not have access to wired broadband Internet Access."

Broadband Coverage Map

 

[lparsons21]

I looked at that website and just a cursory look shows some stretching of the truth.
Counting mobile bandwidth and slow dsl as much as they do allows the skewing of their statement. DSL is generally horrible for streaming more that SD and Mobile bandwidth on a continuing basis for streaming video either doesn’t happen or is beyond the finances of working folks.


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[ncted]

I looked at that website and just a cursory look shows some stretching of the truth.
Counting mobile bandwidth and slow dsl as much as they do allows the skewing of their statement. DSL is generally horrible for streaming more that SD and Mobile bandwidth on a continuing basis for streaming video either doesn’t happen or is beyond the finances of working folks.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Yeah, that map is crap. it shows my brothers address having access to cable, which it certainly does not. It is using the same bad sources self-reported by the ISPs. It is probably 35-40% wrong, if Microsoft's assessment is correct.

It also shows my parents having mobile wireless when none exists in their valley.