“AT&T Inc. (T), joining the ranks of U.S. TV, Internet and wireless providers racing to consolidate, is in advanced talks to acquire DirecTV (DTV) for about $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter,” Alex Sherman and Jeffrey McCracken report for Bloomberg News.
“Under the plan being discussed, management of DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, will continue to run the company as a unit of AT&T, said the people, asking not to be named because the information is private,” Sherman and McCracken report. “DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White is likely to retire after 2015, the people said.”
“The purchase would give AT&T a national satellite-TV provider to combine with its wireless, phone and high-speed broadband Internet services as competition ramps up,” Sherman and McCracken report. “‘With DirecTV they are getting a national TV presence — they can sell TV with wireless nationwide,’ said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics, based in Dedham, Massachusetts. ‘AT&T has increasingly been breaking out of their 22-state landline footprint. They sell wireless, they started selling home security and they could add TV to that package.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]
Why do I have the deja vu feeling? Oh, it’s because MCI paid for a direct broadcast satellite slot at an FCC auction way back in the 90s and then completely mismanaged it to the point where they didn’t even put a satellite up.
Maybe AT&T can do better, but historically telcos and DBS don’t mix.
Net neutrality goes down in the courts and all of a sudden the different barbarians at the gate want to join forces. Of course all this began when Verizon sued saying basically they believed it was their right to charge all not once, but twice maybe three times for the same thing.
The more thing change the more the remain the same. This is why a person can go into a retail store and still purchase a VHS recorder and tapes, DVD’s and Blu-Rays.
Some companies want to move all online to save you money and then there other companies that want to charge you to the point where you may actually have to pay more.
Long live the media library.
Nooooo! Buy TimeWarner! Satellite sucks!
Like Time Warner does NOT suck?
But then, again, it is all relative.
ATT used to have cable…..then they sold it and not sure I can’t remember if that is where comcast came from or comcast bought to put under their name. But it used to be AT&T before Comcast.
AT&T already has TV and have had TV for several years with U-Verse. What is this idiot talking about. I switched from DirectTV several years ago to U-Verse because it offered more for less and still does.
Maybe AT&T will be smart enough to offer NFL Sunday Ticket on AppleTV without a Directv contract.