DIRECTV Plans To Simplify TV Program Offers And Bills

[dfergie]

By mid-year he (CEO Mike White) plans to “simplify our offer structure” and also provide his satellite customers with “a two-page bill that you can actually understand.” The change is partly an outgrowth of his view that the pay TV industry is “not very good….There’s a lot of ways to do things better.”
White pointedly noted that mergers of distributors — including DirecTV and Dish Network — “would create a new balance of power.” Still, he isn’t confident that federal regulators would allow the satellite companies to combine, which would reduce the number of pay TV choices from three to two for about 40% of the population.

deadline.com

 

[dfergie]

White didn't say whether DirecTV still has a desire to merge with Dish Network, but he suggested that such a plan should be easier for regulators to approve of nowadays because, given the many new alternatives consumers have. "The last time Dish tried to acquire DirecTV was 10 years ago and the government rejected it. Since then, in half of America you've got a very robust Telco competitor now. That's a change," he said.
He also reiterated that DirecTV plans to simplify its "offer structure" so that customers can "actually understand" their bill.

hollywoodreporter.com

 

[detroit_fan]

Who are they trying to kid? Around here you have satellite or 1 cable company to choose from, no uverse or fios. so if they were to allow a merger, i would be down to 2 choices, how it that fair competition? A merger would be a disaster for consumers, and anyone who is limited to satellite woudl only have 1 option, that's never a good thing. JMO

 

[mdram]

Who are they trying to kid? Around here you have satellite or 1 cable company to choose from, no uverse or fios. so if they were to allow a merger, i would be down to 2 choices, how it that fair competition? A merger would be a disaster for consumers, and anyone who is limited to satellite woudl only have 1 option, that's never a good thing. JMO

im in the sat only group
and i know when the sirius/xm merger happened my prices seemed to double within 2 years due to fees and programming price increase

 

[Broe67]

Who are they trying to kid? Around here you have satellite or 1 cable company to choose from, no uverse or fios. so if they were to allow a merger, i would be down to 2 choices, how it that fair competition? A merger would be a disaster for consumers, and anyone who is limited to satellite woudl only have 1 option, that's never a good thing. JMO

Here it is Comcast, UVerse or Satellite. But then there is a catch. In some areas of this town. You cannot get UVerse TV or Phone. But you can get UVerse Internet for a mere 1mbps in those areas.

The areas that can get 1mbps UVerse of course, are the subdivisions with million dollar homes. ATT thought that plan out really well. They of course gave the bad part of town the privilege of getting tv, Internet, phone if they want.

 

[bobvick]

Who are they trying to kid? Around here you have satellite or 1 cable company to choose from, no uverse or fios. so if they were to allow a merger, i would be down to 2 choices, how it that fair competition? A merger would be a disaster for consumers, and anyone who is limited to satellite woudl only have 1 option, that's never a good thing. JMO

Where I live, in rural America, DTV and Dish are the ONLY two choices. No cable, never will be, no IPTV, hell, I had to beg CenturyLink to even provide DSL here. Of course the regulators in Washington could give two craps about people in rural areas.

 

[Stargazer]

The satellite companies stand to benefit by not having to offer as good of promotions if a merger would happen because people could no longer flip flop back and forth between Dish Network and Directv. I am surprised that both companies have not worked together more to prevent this. I can see prices rising though if a merger were to occur. I think we are better off having both satellite companies around unless the sub counts started dropping a lot or if it would mean a new type of service or enhanced service as a result that we could not get otherwise.

 

[Jimbo]

Here it is Comcast, UVerse or Satellite. But then there is a catch. In some areas of this town. You cannot get UVerse TV or Phone. But you can get UVerse Internet for a mere 1mbps in those areas.

The areas that can get 1mbps UVerse of course, are the subdivisions with million dollar homes. ATT thought that plan out really well. They of course gave the bad part of town the privilege of getting tv, Internet, phone if they want.

Actually, what more than likely happened, is the NEW Developments are having Uverse available because they can lay the groundwork ahead of the homes being built, vs having to go into existing areas and trying to make things work.

The New development areas ATT has been able to work in have had very good results, of course everything is new and FTTH, vs FTTP.

Much more difficult to place a new type of service in existing residences.

Some of the lines I work on are over a 100 years old, most are at least 30-40 years old and those are the newer ones.

 

[TheTechGuru]

Well I do have another option ^^^^^^ but I don't like their channel offerings.

The problem is that rural america would go from two options to one. The only way I see around that would be to bring back Pegasus Satellite TV and another or more competitive resellers for rural america.

Basically people in areas with other options like Cable, FIOS, UVerse would be able to go directly though DirectNetwork (prob will be the new name) and those that live in rural areas will need to pick from a few competitive DirectNetwork resellers like Pegasus was and not be allowed to go though DirectNetwork directly.