DirecTV Terminates Deal To Buy Dish Satellite Business (arstechnica.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: DirecTV is pulling out of an agreement to buy its satellite rival Dish after bondholders objected to terms of the deal. DirecTV issued an announcement last night saying "it has notified EchoStar of its election to terminate, effective as of 11:59 p.m., ET on Friday, November 22nd, 2024, the Equity Purchase Agreement (EPA) pursuant to which it had agreed to acquire EchoStar's video distribution business, Dish DBS."
In the deal announced on September 30, DirecTV was going to buy the Dish satellite TV and Sling TV streaming business from EchoStar for a nominal fee of $1. DirecTV would have taken on $9.75 billion of Dish debt if the transaction moved ahead. The deal did not include the Dish Network cellular business. Dish bondholders quickly objected to terms requiring them to take a loss on the value of their debt. DirecTV had said Dish notes would be exchanged with "a reduced principal amount of DirecTV debt which will have terms and collateral that mirror DirecTV's existing secured debt." The principal amount would have been reduced by at least $1.568 billion.
DirecTV last night said it is now exercising its right to terminate the acquisition because noteholders did not accept the exchange offer. "The termination of the Agreement follows Dish DBS noteholders' failure to agree to the proposed Exchange Debt Offer Terms issued by EchoStar, which was a condition of DirecTV's obligations to acquire Dish under the EPA," the press release said. DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow indicated his company wasn't willing to change the deal to satisfy Dish bondholders. "We have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms were necessary to protect DirecTV's balance sheet and our operational flexibility," Morrow said.
In the deal announced on September 30, DirecTV was going to buy the Dish satellite TV and Sling TV streaming business from EchoStar for a nominal fee of $1. DirecTV would have taken on $9.75 billion of Dish debt if the transaction moved ahead. The deal did not include the Dish Network cellular business. Dish bondholders quickly objected to terms requiring them to take a loss on the value of their debt. DirecTV had said Dish notes would be exchanged with "a reduced principal amount of DirecTV debt which will have terms and collateral that mirror DirecTV's existing secured debt." The principal amount would have been reduced by at least $1.568 billion.
DirecTV last night said it is now exercising its right to terminate the acquisition because noteholders did not accept the exchange offer. "The termination of the Agreement follows Dish DBS noteholders' failure to agree to the proposed Exchange Debt Offer Terms issued by EchoStar, which was a condition of DirecTV's obligations to acquire Dish under the EPA," the press release said. DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow indicated his company wasn't willing to change the deal to satisfy Dish bondholders. "We have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms were necessary to protect DirecTV's balance sheet and our operational flexibility," Morrow said.
Too much competition from starlink? (Score:3)
I am just stunned to find out that sattelite TV companies are still in business in 2024. Who is paying for this stuff? I can't think of anyone who still has cable TV at this point let alone a big floppy thing bolted to the side of their house.
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Rural. Where telecom companies offer 1.5M DSL and mom and pop WISPs offer 10M.
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Rural. Where telecom companies offer 1.5M DSL and mom and pop WISPs offer 10M.
Privileged! Where I grew up and my mother and brother still live, there is no DSL. A few years back they moved from satellite to cellular.
Re: Too much competition from starlink? (Score:2)
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I was a beta tester for DirecPC using the AOL online service.
We were given a satellite dish fitted with two LNB downconverters to receive both DirecTV and internet at the same time. It was receive-only, meaning the upload part went to AOL through the 56k modem and the download part was around 1 megabit.
It worked very well but was horribly expensive.
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Re: Too much competition from starlink? (Score:2)
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Re: Too much competition from starlink? (Score:2, Informative)
I am just stunned to find out that sattelite TV companies are still in business in 2024.
Didn't underestimate the population of Boomers out there who never learned technology. My father lost access to the cable TV that had previously been included in his rent for his apartment. He told me he misses it because he's become quite a news junky. He doesn't know anything about streaming services and doesn't want to learn when i told him there are free ones. He gets free Internet access and owns a smartphone, but doesn't know how to use it really beyond making calls, texts, and reading (but not replyi
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Bondholders are going to force bankruptcy? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Nobody wants DirecTV either (Score:2)
So now the only option is slow death for both (Score:2)
Linear TV is dead except for sports and news programming. It'll take some time bout both of those will be streamed eventually.
Business in a given market consolidate when the market they are in starts to decline. Take that consolidation away and they just wither on the vine.
Takes down a lot of niche channels (Score:2)
Last few times I've seen cable / satellite TV and even SirusXM radio, there are not enough channels / stations to justify even subscribing.
When you eliminate the never going to watch/listen to channels and have less than 10 remaining, there's not much point in subscribing.