WarnerMedia Discovery deal is closed. DIRECTV is 70% owned by ATT and the discussions must be how to exit completely. Is DISH the only feasible option to acquire DTV? It's touted often DIRECTV is a separate company but how is that possible when owned by TPG and ATT?
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We've tested audio/video/captions between satellite and streaming and in regard to video the overwhelming winner was streaming with no huge difference in audio and captioning.
DTV and Dish signal compression is it's Achilles heal not to mention their monthly cost to subscribers. Take from this what you will.
The prevailing thought is DTV and Dish will be combined at some point. It won't happen until TPG and AT&T either can make money on the deal or cut their losses. Regulatory approval is still in doubt as well. Some thought that TPG would buy Dish taking it private and then combining and spinning off. Can't really do anything about it as an employee so why worry at this point?
@moqp Is 3 years a contractual obligation or can they jump ship and sell their 30% share? Legacy Satellite is losing subscribers, ATT Uverse is not marketed for growth and DTV Stream is not competitively priced in todays streaming environment. Netflix has about 220 million subscribers with 11,300 employees, Directv has about 15-20 million subscribers with ~10,000 employees. This overhead and cost structure needs to change in a hurry, do the math on the number of subscribers per employee for both companies.
My understanding is that T retains a 70% ownership over DTV as a passive investor only. TPG carries the remaining 30% of book value with full rights as to operational oversight and management. What is of more importance is that TPG has only committed to a three year ownership and we are 10 months into that timeline.
The real question is what happens 2 years and 2 months from now.
It is no secret that we continue to shed upwards of 400,000 customers per quarter in our legacy satellite line of business. Directv Stream seems to be attracting interest, but based on the postings in AV Talk, DBStalk, SatGuys and facebook, that interest wanes within 3 or 4 months and they drop us.
Someone earlier said we are the landline phone business in the age of cellular and that stands as a true statement. Our technology dates back to 1994 and our current crop of receivers were conceived in 2013 for the basic Genie system and 2017 for the tu-d tower called Genie 2.
In terms of technology - 5 years ago may well as be 500 years ago.
Our own company has intimated that they have no plans to further develop the legacy side of this business, all interest lies in streaming in hopes that we become a player. Yet, recent developments in the streaming world point to less of a demand for aggregators and re-transmitters such as ourselves and more power and growth towards those companies that self- produce content and deliver it directly to the consumer without a middle-man distributor such as ourselves
I'll say it outright - we are obsolete and will cease to be an enterprise within 3 to 5 years.
If you are not actively submitting your resume to other companies I strongly suggest you begin doing so. I am lucky being within 15 months of retirement of not having to do that, but to date, 31 of my shop's 42 techs have already jumped ship for greener pastures over the past year. You should too.
Been following a question thread on Workplace from a West Coast tech asking about our future given that our customers are older than dirt. The guy finally got a semi-answer after two weeks that basically said the legacy sat side is doomed to providing service to off-grid rurals and old people.
Eighty percent of my yard has already skipped to other companies and the rest of us are interviewing.
Time to get off the ship.
I don't see DTV lasting 5 yrs without losing a ton of money. Not when someone can use a free streaming service and get almost the same content. DTV would have to offer the streaming service for $5.99/mo to grow customer base.
TPG agreed to a three year trial ownership.
We are 9 months into that time frame.
So far as I can discern, we are hoping like heck that Stream becomes a "thing".
Forget that we are the most expensive content delivery option even though the number one reason for being dropped by customers is cost.
Forget that the trend towards "Direct-To-Consumer" means that more hit shows will be available only from the content provider via their independent streaming service and not through the middle man distributor (us).
Forget that our Genie technology is 8 to 10 years old and we don't even have gimmicks such as talking remotes like even the crappiest cable company does.
Satellites - where are the new ones? Takes 2 to 3 years to have one built and can take another year to get it launched and parked. The last three we have left will start dying as soon as five years from now. If we are serious about this tech, the contract for replacements should have been written a year ago.
I get it, legacy sat is quickly becoming the landline phone of technology. Streaming, heck yeah, it's where every advertiser's preferred age demographic is going and are actually where they are at. So hoping for the sake of the employees that depend on DTV for their paycheck that at least Stream succeeds.
If not, then we get sucked into Charlie Ergen's empire and become another footnote reference in some Bloomberg article titled "whatever happened to?".
"What I would like to know is where all the hiring money is coming from?"
You are not alone (Sr. Director)
I thought TPG and ATT would rationalize further but instead on a hiring spree. The plan must be to exchange experience for less expensive employees.
What I would like to know is where all the hiring money is coming from?
Everyday my Workface feeds are full of new hire this and new hire that and all I see from this hiring or-y are more work-from-home Muppets posting selfies and pics of their work-group having parties.
Is this our version of the orchestra on the Titanic playing until the bitter end?
I mean really people, we have lost upwards of 50% of our historic customer base. Once Apple takes Sunday Ticket away, there goes another 2 million customers out the door.
As it stands now, in my DMA, the only customers we have left are 80 year olds afraid of change and non-English speakers watching Mexican Telenovellas or Korean Soap Operas and neither of these groups are exactly a "growth demographic".
I give this sinking ship five years at most or sooner if one of our last 3 satellites bites the dust a few years early.
Since our field workload has dropped off to one job a day and where we once did 2-3 new installs per Tech a day and now its maybe 1 a week, I'd say the legacy Sat side will be gone in three years. Besides, all the intercompany hoopla and support is on the Streaming side anyway.
As a comparison DTV used to Home Depot, but now it has become the neighborhood Mom & Pop hardware store. That doesn't bode well for it's future.