NY Post: Write-down for DTV and bankruptcy for Dish likely

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NY Post: Write-down for DTV and bankruptcy for Dish likely

Post by tvroadmin » Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:12 am

Streaming services hastening demise of satellite TV giants
By Alexandra Steigrad and Richard Morgan February 19, 2019

Satellite TV is dying more quickly than Wall Street thought.

Cheap streaming services from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and YouTube are spurring surprisingly steep customer losses at Dish Network and DirecTV, the nation’s dominant satellite broadcasters.

Last week, shares of Dish, run by Charlie Ergen, tumbled 7.7 percent after the company revealed it lost 334,000 customers in the most recent quarter — a frightening figure that left the ranks of its satellite-TV subscribers below the 10 million mark for the first time in 15 years.

Two weeks earlier, DirecTV revealed its subscriber ranks plunged by 658,000 — nearly twice the 346,000 it bled a quarter earlier, sending shares of its owner, AT&T, plunging 4.3 percent.

By contrast, cable providers like Charter’s Spectrum lost 36,000 subscribers, Comcast dropped 19,000 and Verizon’s Fios shed 46,000.

The carnage renewed questions about AT&T boss Randall Stephenson’s 2015 decision to shell out $67 billion to buy DirecTV. While defenders say AT&T was buying a subscriber base and content deals, both arguments are looking increasingly thin — and analysts are getting more blunt about it.

DirecTV “found a greater fool to sell the asset to quickly — before its impending death was broadly known,” said Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at New Street Research.

Indeed, at a November presentation to analysts, Stephenson admitted AT&T was “scrambling” to amp up its streaming-video business because it was “seeing shifts in viewing from traditional TV viewing — cable, satellite — to on-demand viewing.”

“For satellite operators, losing subscriptions is catastrophic,” said Craig Moffett, analyst at MoffettNathanson. “These businesses have high fixed costs and their margins will spiral down as they lose subscribers.”

AT&T will likely take an “enormous write-down” on DirecTV, whereas the debt-laden Dish will likely file for bankruptcy in the coming years, he said.

Neither has been helping the situation by jacking up prices. Last month, Dish hiked its basic package by more than 10 percent, to $52.99 a month. Also in January, the price of the standard DirecTV Choice increased more than 12 percent, to $45 a month.

Netflix, by comparison, recently hiked its monthly price to $12.99 a month.

“It’s going to be death by a thousand paper cuts,” said Chris Wagner, managing partner at OTT Advisors. “The arrival of 5G [wireless broadband] networks — with speeds up to 100 times greater than they are now — will give consumers another reason why satellite broadcasting doesn’t cut it.”

Dish has been getting hit especially hard given that, on Nov. 1, AT&T pulled its HBO premium channel from Dish customers in a dispute over programming fees.

“It is a strange situation in that DirecTV and Dish are competing fiercely for subscribers, and AT&T now controls both DirecTV and HBO,” Chaplin said. “They can demand a huge price increase [for HBO], as they have, and if Dish pays it, they win big. And if Dish refuses, they still stand to capture many of the subscribers Dish loses.”
Source: NY Post
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Re: NY Post: Write-down for DTV and bankruptcy for Dish likely

Post by tvroadmin » Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:19 am

Bold prediction by the NY Post for sure. If anyone was thinking about signing up with these companies, you may want to think twice because your investment in their hardware will probably go to waste.
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Re: NY Post: Write-down for DTV and bankruptcy for Dish likely

Post by belter-one » Wed Feb 20, 2019 12:01 pm

tvroadmin wrote:
Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:19 am
Bold prediction by the NY Post for sure. If anyone was thinking about signing up with these companies, you may want to think twice because your investment in their hardware will probably go to waste.
Wow,

We've been with DirecTV for decades. We used to live in a HOA where a C-Band dish was impossible. DirecTV back then treated its customers and installers quite well. The prices were lower, including the sports. Then a few years back it was the same corporate poodoo we lived through in the corporate world:

1. DirecTV cut employees, assets, raised prices.
2. DirecTV sold itself to stinking AT&T (used to be southern Bell, not the original AT&T).
3. AT&T cut services, raised prices on everything and even zorched our original customer number, replacing it with a new one.
4. AT&T eliminated most, if not all of the DirecTV labeling and logos.

So, we are cutting the cord in the next couple of months, and are working on getting our OTA and Ku antenna and dish up and running to supplement
our already up and running 10 foot C band dish. The OTA and Ku equipment are probably going to have to live on the roof, in order to shoot past the
trees. We love FTA/OTA as a hobby and an education of sorts. There is some fascinating programming via FTA, some in HD and 4K that is freely
available that AT&T/DirecTV never bother to offer or pass on to their customers, i.e. NASA Public HD, NASA Media HD and NASA Harmonic 3840 x 2160 (6K). Yet they always have bandwidth for hillbilly handfishing and soft porn. And the beat goes on. I already miss the Peyton Manning commercials. Omaha!

Painting our 10 foot dish today, :reading

belter-one

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Re: NY Post: Write-down for DTV and bankruptcy for Dish likely

Post by tvroadmin » Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:27 am

Most have no idea that an inexpensive C-band dish can pull in nearly 4,000 (and mostly FTA and master quality) channels over the Americas. Three decades of propaganda from the usual corporate suspects has convinced the average person that C-band satellite TV reception doesn't even exist anymore, and that DIRECTV and DISH are the only game in town. In fact, one satellite forum (controlled by DIRECTV) has an old thread up titled: "Are C-band satellites still working?"

My response: Would DIRECTV work if C-band satellites weren't still working? :thinking
belter-one wrote:
Wed Feb 20, 2019 12:01 pm
Painting our 10 foot dish today, :reading
Just don't paint it pink! :lol:
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Re: NY Post: Write-down for DTV and bankruptcy for Dish likely

Post by fatso » Tue Feb 26, 2019 8:48 am

Dish could go broke as soon as this year if they don't get the 5G stuff off the ground. :spin

https://seekingalpha.com/article/424395 ... make-break
12ft Mesh Dish
C-Band Enthusiast since 1983

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