Interesting Article about DirecTV, Dish and the Industry
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White is all wet about the assured future of DBS. He seems to be tying the content to the delivery model and that's absolutely not the case. If most consumers can get the same content elsewhere, especially if it seems like a better value, they will. This is especially clear in view of the fact that DIRECTV is making so ridiculously much money while subscriber adds are clearly decreasing.
He seems to be pretty confident about doing nothing but staying the course. Not smart in my opinion. At least Charlie is trying to change with customer's viewing tendencies. I was surprised at how willing they were to consider a Dish/Direct merger.
I am sure that they are thinking that a merger of DISH & DIRECTV would be similar to the merger between Sirius & Xm satellite radio. Satellite is definitely not going to continue to grow in the future. So a merger would make sense if the competition for satellite is going to keep growing. Like Internet delivered companies like Hulu and Netflix, Amazon, etc. Charlie already tried this last decade and it was scuttled by the government on the potential for anti trust monopoly charges if there was no other competition in satellite . This time I think that letting the two merge would actually forestall the declining sub numbers. Because the merged company could give you all channels in HD for national , premium and sports channels. Possibly, and that is a big POSSIBLY, this might lead to lower charges for programming because the combined company would have like 35 million subscribers and that would translate into bargaining power against companies like Viacom and DISNEY ,not to mention the locals: network channels.
I think it's foolish of DirecTV to keep putting all their eggs in one basket. When the bottom falls out of the traditional pay TV market - as it eventually will - they will have no fallback position.
I don't see broadband being a replacement for satellite. Not in the foreseeable future. Reason being there is not enough bandwidth on any of the normal ISP's whether it be 3G, 4G, cable or DSL. It is not happening. There are far too much bandwidth Available on satellite.
This topic came up on the c band forum regarding IP tv. If it would happen, it will be years away. America does not have good broadband.
This topic came up on the c band forum regarding IP tv. If it would happen, it will be years away. America does not have good broadband.
DIRECTV expansion is in Latin America. http://www.multichannel.com/satellite/latin-america-drives-directvs-q1/143150
That may work just fine for keeping them alive in a different market but that doesn't help them much if numbers dwindle here in the US.
As I have spent the better part of the last few days watching programing from Amazon Prime via Roku, I have little confidence that Mr. White will be able to keep D* viable for long with his apparent mind set.
