https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/directv-dish-merger-how-impact-customers

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DirecTV is buying rival Dish Network in an attempt to effectively compete against streaming services.

On Monday, the satellite TV provider announced it will pay $1 for EchoStar's video distribution business, Dish DBS, which means it will own Dish TV and Sling TV. DirecTV also agreed to assume $9.75 billion of Dish's debt.

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As a user of DirecTV Stream, i can only hope this increases our channels for the price we already pay with the absorption of Sling but we all know how that usually works out....

Netflix realized early on that you have to do content. You can't survive as a pure delivery service now.

The sum of the streaming services now exceeds the cable bundle, but those streamers also own the content.

As a Dish customer, this sucks. I absolutley HATE the DirecTV guide interface. Hope they don't change it.

boulderaggie said:

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As a Dish customer, this sucks. I absolutley HATE the DirecTV guide interface. Hope they don't change it.

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Yep.

boulderaggie said:

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As a Dish customer, this sucks. I absolutley HATE the DirecTV guide interface. Hope they don't change it.

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I had Dish Network for 20+ years before we switched to DTV Streaming last year. You are probably pretty safe on that front since the dish equipment they use is not Interchangeable and unless they replace all current boxes and force a swap to dtv (which also requires new antenna + beam eyes), your going to be set for a long while. I doubt they will ever try to retrofit the old equipment with wholy new firmware just to make it function like dtv. Waste of money when they can just enable the channels and sync costs per packages instead.

With high speed internet available everywhere, streaming is taking their and cables business

MSM is dying and social media/streaming is taking its place. POD casts as well

If Trump wins big, which I believe he will, hopefully it contributes bigly to their death

This reminds me, I need to cancel Direct Stream tonight. Rangers' season is over. Don't need Bally's anymore and I hate Direct Stream.

Cable tv and telephones on the wall already in the Smithsonian.

No way a deal like this would have been allowed to go through even 10 years ago. Times are changing.

Dish? Directv? Grandpa, what are those?

So will the residents of DISH, Texas have to change their town's name again?

DirecTV and Dish are both on borrowed time as far as their satellite distribution goes. The cost to build and launch a new satellite in geostationary orbit is astronomical, and they have to be replaced every 10-15 years or so. I don't have exact counts but off the top of my head each service has probably 8-10 birds up across a few different orbital slots.

They're not launching any more to replace what's up there. When the current fleets are done, it's lights out. By then everyone who can't be served by cable or fiber will be able to stream via Starlink or other competing services.

This deal was about milking the last few pennies from a dying business model.

I agree. I ditched Dish after 20 years for YTTV and then we pick and choose other streams as we want. It's still a metric ton cheaper than dish. I don't know how dish or direct is still in business. With Starlink, you have no speed internet anywhere in the world. Those satellites serve crucial services and will always be updated. As long as that's going, streaming is where it's at and satellite tv is dead.

Direct and Dish might be Sirius and XM.

Fubo or YouTubeTV, here I come. I'm in the middle of a Fubo Sub (30 day free), Gonna cancel that and try YouTube Tv(45 Day Free). Game on.

Jason_Roofer said:

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I agree. I ditched Dish after 20 years for YTTV and then we pick and choose other streams as we want. It's still a metric ton cheaper than dish. I don't know how dish or direct is still in business. With Starlink, you have no speed internet anywhere in the world. Those satellites serve crucial services and will always be updated. As long as that's going, streaming is where it's at and satellite tv is dead.

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What happens when Starlink and DTV make a deal and create a combo dish/Starlink antenna, that is really just a the latter with a fake dish in it so they can sell you on the combo package and stream it to you anyway? Then we're all right back where we started.

But it will only have conservative programming and Southpark will have new material. Seems win win win win.

boulderaggie said:

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As a Dish customer, this sucks. I absolutley HATE the DirecTV guide interface. Hope they don't change it.

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We have DirectTV, mom has Dish

Give me the DTV channel guide every day of the week and twice on Sunday

Dish is overly complex, wont keep your settings, and has her local channels in standard definition only

I don't which is a bigger dinosaur - cable, satellite, or rabbit ears. I personally still use rabbit ears some because, well, it's free. Though apparently the next standard for HDTV they are trying to roll out includes DRM encryption for over-the-air broadcasts.

Who still has cable/satellite?

Aggie4Life02 said:

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Who still has cable/satellite?

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Well, I was slow to give up our land line....

Aggie4Life02 said:

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Who still has cable/satellite?

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There are still some pockets where people can't get high speed internet. Sounds odd but there's plenty of people who don't have the high speed lines in their area. You can count my parents in that population. They also have real spotty cell service so that limits their options as well. They looked into satellite internet but I don't think it was worth the cost to them. They don't really care about streaming either since they've never had it. They've been with Dish for like 20 years or so, if Dish goes out of business they'll be in a bind.

Old sat internet was absolutely trash since it was high altitude sats. Slower than dsl, super high latency and extremely high cost with data caps. Thats no longer the case with starlink though. Most of those off grid or remote places can now actually get affordable internet.

Pinochet said:

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Jason_Roofer said:

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I agree. I ditched Dish after 20 years for YTTV and then we pick and choose other streams as we want. It's still a metric ton cheaper than dish. I don't know how dish or direct is still in business. With Starlink, you have no speed internet anywhere in the world. Those satellites serve crucial services and will always be updated. As long as that's going, streaming is where it's at and satellite tv is dead.

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What happens when Starlink and DTV make a deal and create a combo dish/Starlink antenna, that is really just a the latter with a fake dish in it so they can sell you on the combo package and stream it to you anyway? Then we're all right back where we started.

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I can't believe Dish or Direct haven't figured out how to run internet through their current satellites. Either run it into the existing home dish, or have the homeowner upgrade the dish and update the set top box to double as a modem/router. They should have jumped on this before Starlink was even an idea, but certainly at least have jumped to it once Starkink was announced as an idea.

Uhhhh...Monopoly much?

Gaeilge said:

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Uhhhh...Monopoly much?

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a monopoly on what

BQ_90 said:

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Gaeilge said:

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Uhhhh...Monopoly much?

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a monopoly on what

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Isn't this a consolidation of two of the largest media distributors in the country? Or am I missing something?

Actually, DirecTV (Direct/DirectTV) was purchased by ATT years ago and they made a very hard push to a digital platform, pairing the ATT modem with the DirecTV streaming subscription. Like others have said, content was the problem. Just being a distributor with user hardware requirements made them unique.

YouTube TV is a distributor but still doesn't have any hardware to push (dish/modem/router). Hulu, Disney, Netflix, Prime, Max all provide content.

So ATT is getting out of the entertainment business and raising their cell phone rates. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-marks-exit-costly-push-181718246.html

Gaeilge said:

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BQ_90 said:

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Gaeilge said:

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Uhhhh...Monopoly much?

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a monopoly on what

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Isn't this a consolidation of two of the largest media distributors in the country? Or am I missing something?

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Quote:

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Streaming services have gained dominance in recent years over satellite TV due to their on-demand accessibility with internet connectivity. As subscription prices for traditional satellite TV increased and the desire for on-demand viewing surged, more households began to cut the cord from traditional satellite providers.

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can you show where they are two of the largest media distributors compared to those streaming services

Logos Stick said:

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Netflix realized early on that you have to do content. You can't survive as a pure delivery service now.

The sum of the streaming services now exceeds the cable bundle, but those streamers also own the content.

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No, studios started to see the value of their licensed content and wanted to cut out the middleman. They started making their own services when their contacts were up and shutting Netflix out, so Netflix started making their own content.

Now you can't be purely delivery because there's not nearly enough content to license, not because there's value in production.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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Netflix realized early on that you have to do content. You can't survive as a pure delivery service now.

The sum of the streaming services now exceeds the cable bundle, but those streamers also own the content.

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No, studios started to see the value of their licensed content and wanted to cut out the middleman. They started making their own services when their contacts were up and shutting Netflix out, so Netflix started making their own content.

Now you can't be purely delivery because there's not nearly enough content to license, not because there's value in production.

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That's not why Netflix started producing content. They saw the future of delivery only, which was obvious. It's a commodity now. It's all well documented. There's not enough content to license because the content guys started streaming. They still allow the bundlers to include their stuff, like ESPN, because they get paid for every subscriber.

How are you doing them for that long free?

OneProudAg said:

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Fubo or YouTubeTV, here I come. I'm in the middle of a Fubo Sub (30 day free), Gonna cancel that and try YouTube Tv(45 Day Free). Game on.

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I used to do that a couple times a year with new emails, lol only during football season