A selloff, integration with WM, reduction in headcount, dismantling DTV under the AT&T umbrella… so much rumors and yet nothing is happening and the leadership doesn’t want to go out publicly about what it plans to do with DTV. I can’t tell weather this situation is making me more angry or worried. Any opinions on what might happen to DTV?
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When T was buying DTV, we in DTV were told that they really did not want our dishes, our boxes or our Techs - they wanted our sweetheart carriage rebroadcast deals with the content providers. T was also looking to ride our Latin American holdings to better pimp their cellphones into a growth arena.
As for their plans - I see T keeping a basic Sat presence for the rural customer at least until 2028 when the last of the DTV Sats dies in orbit. In the meantime, new customers and urban upgrade customers will be shoved into one of the 5 plans for streaming.
OTT Osprey will be their focus to WOW the young folks who are dying to watch reruns of their parent's shows like Friends. And HBO! Where else but here can you watch Hot Tub Time Machine 56 times in a month? We got what you want baby!
Back to the carriage contracts - today, Viacom started running a scroll on all 22 of their channels warning that T will drop them this Friday. Viacom accuses T of jacking the costs beyond reason and choosing to push their WM garbage over other channels garbage. I foresee many more blackouts as the legacy DTV content contracts expire in the next 2 years.
I go back to what has been said before on this site - if T wanted to be Netflix - they should have started 10 year sago. If they are hoping that Turner Classic Movies and CNN are going to save them - remember that everyday 20,000 Baby Boomers die of old age...and every quarter you lose another half million subscribers.
"smart home solutions. "
don't think people are going to go to att for smart home solutions.
people want a fat big dumb pipe from att and they will go with whoever can provide that at the cheapest price. they don't any of the other bs like the useless apps att puts on their smart phone.
nothing wrong with providing a big fat dumb pipe but stankey doesn't think that is profitable.
DTV is not going to disappear overnight.
Keep in mind that T never intended to become a satellite cable company and the purchase had a purpose and is serving a purpose.
DTV helped push broadband into more homes and allowed us an avenue to hold onto more broadband customers in areas that will never get VRADs.
DTV has lowered overall loss in broadband customers to competitors. Oh your promotion is up we can save you money with a new promotion with uverse for the next year or two and vice versa. which keeps our broadband in homes longer.
DTV came with sports programming deals and other programming deals.
DTV is serving it’s purpose and is in no way the future of this company.
Broadband is the star and is key to rolling out the next phase with OTT services and smart home solutions.
AT&T will have to do something about DTV. Losing hundreds of thousands of DTV subs every quarter is not sustainable. Yes, DBS will not disappear tomorrow , but the continuous loss of large number of subs will impact AT&T's bottom line, stock, etc. DBS is simply not a growing business and AT&T will keep getting punished every quarter by DTV.... it is sad but this has been happening for the past two years and will keep happening until AT&T's genius leadership team figures out what to do with DTV. I have no hope as someone mentioned that the current AT&T leadership team is smart enough to figure this out. After all, Mr. Stankey, the giant genius with his loud voice is responsible for this mess - and the leadership team rewarded him with 65% pay raise!
Who would buy it?
Directv is not going anywhere.... some of the customers will get the Osprey box in time but others will keep satellite in areas without broadband. Osprey will take significant costs out of the business making it a higher margin linear TV product.
Because everything the company does is a big secret.
I suspect Stephenson, Stephens, et al. don't know what to do. The buying binge to get artificial growth has caused the financial situation to spiral out of control. Imagine you are blindfolded in a mine field. That's how it must feel on the power floors of 208 S. Akard. Whatever they do will have unfortunate consequences and they aren't sure the path to minimal consequences. Any explanation of AT&T behavior that assumes executive management is supremely competent and just playing 11 dimensional chess is delusional. These guys have painted themselves into a corner and they are frozen with fear.
And many live where satellite is their only option for paid tv and no access to wireline hsia.
Big picture is directv is not going to be sold off imo. Bottom line is directv is still a net revenue positive on the company’s bottom line and contributes significantly to cash flow. Yes , satellite is declining but you still have somewhere just shy of 20 million who have them and pay that bill every month. It’s going to take years, if not a decade or longer of cable cutting to get rid of satellite customers. Many live in areas where they can’t get faster than 6 mbps internet. That’s not enough to switch to streaming. Yes there will be layoffs as the trend to cutting the cord continues but directv itself is still needed by At&t for the forseeable future. In fact, directv is a big part of their XANDR advertising plan. Satellite will be around for quite a while to come.