As somebody else mentioned, we're currently amid a hiring spree and for a change, things have been going right for a while now. There is no reason for cuts at this point. I'm usually a glass-half-empty kind of guy, but even I have to admit that I've relaxed lately in regards to layoffs. Enjoy the good times while they last, folks. It will not be forever.
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No one should believe any positive spin or hype Directv management states. Simply put this is a slow and dying business. Directv satellite losing 400k customers each quarter. Wait til Sunday Ticket is officially gone, another few million customers will cancel. And Directv Stream will not be able to grow. A cr---y product and costlier vs better products such as Hulu or YouTube TV. Caution to all employees. Don’t believe any of the Workplace hype.
I work on DTV Stream and regardless of what they make public, there has not been much hiring at all on our side. During our previous hands-on, they told us they basically want us to double our output this year. A contractor on my team has been trying to go FTE for two years and he does great work. Only a matter of time before he leaves.
DISH lost 462,000 Sat subscribers in the first quarter. This like kind business is probably a good thermometer for how DTV is faring.
Good post , true and to the point.
What irks me is hearing my AVP prattle on about the number of New Installs while at the same time, hearing from the Techs that most of these so called new installs are just churns of existing accounts.
They are telling me over pizza and beers that most of their "New Installs" involve John Smith dying from old age and rather than just changing the existing account over to the spouse's name, Jane Smith; that DTV instead creates a New Install order. Meaning that we now pay a heavily loaded labor rate to roll a truck and a tech to remove a perfectly good Genie system and replace it with the exact same equipment.
Well, not really exact, because they originally had newly manufactured hardware and the Techs can only substitute that with refurbished junk that has been through 2 or 3 accounts already.
But the Techs like it because it is easy money. They are allotted 2 to 4 hours for a new build when they actually do the swap inside of 30 minutes and milk the rest of the time. Free money is what they call it. I call it a stupid policy decision, but that's just my opinion.
And then to hear my clueless AVP tout the install count without having a clue about any of this reality - well, I just keep my mouth shut and collect my paycheck too. I'm just glad I don't own stock in this outfit.
If you read between the lines of the promotion postings as well as the new hire announcements that flood Workplace daily, it is not difficult to see the emphasis is 100% streaming.
Although subscriber losses are no longer divulged in the quarterly results as the legacy side of D is hidden inside the TPG portfolio with no specifics given, the industry insiders continue to suggest that legacy Sat still bleeds a quarterly loss of 400,000 subscribers. My local Field Techs have dwindled from a crew of over 50 to less than a dozen and we routinely offer unpaid surplus time every month due to lack of work.
Talk to any Field Tech and they will tell you that the majority of our remaining customers on the Sat side are elderly in the over 70 age group hanging on for familiarity for no other reason. Add a smattering of foreign language customers - again, mostly elderly pining for the home country and the final single digit percentage of customers being sport fanatics although the loss of ST will ki-l that group come next year.
As the local Telcos finally deploy fiber into the hinterlands and with the proliferation of Starlink bringing true broadband to the "rurals", we will, as we have already beginning to see, lose these outliers as well.
Consider that the Legacy Sat has seen no new technology or set-top hardware since 2017 since the release of the pathetic Genie 2 and the with the aging of our satellite fleet, it doesn't take a crystal ball to see that our roots are being left to slowly wither and die.
What I question is whether D can convince enough subscribers to pay the relatively exorbitant monthly cost of DTV Stream just to watch the same low-viewership garbage that we carry on the Sat side. All the "Cool Kids" watch niche programming not carried by the networks and I don't see that changing - ever. Ask any person under the age of 40 or 50 about "traditional channels" and you will get responses ranging from "boring" to "uncool", to that's what "old people watch".
To merely take that same drivel and send it over the Internet is not a compelling product line in my estimation.
Finally, consider the rapidly developing trend among content providers to go Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) with their own O&O streaming platforms and it is not hard to see a day when we no longer have any content to broadcast. Why use a third party distributor like DTV when you can bypass such and retain all revenue for your self. Just makes good business sense.
DTV had its time - but it is no longer the 1990s or the early oughts and we too shall pass and end up in a "What Ever Happened To" article in Forbes.
DTV Stream is the future and I suspect the skill set is weighted towards satellite service that is waning. Maybe it's time to adjust headcount levels with emphasis on streaming service and perhaps that's why many new hires have been brought onboard to support that effort. It's simple to understand, hire the needed skills for streaming and reduce the skills in the declining satellite business. I suppose some can make the transition but for many that will take time to create and it's hard to play catch up in this business. Good luck to all.