Convergence Research Group estimated that over-the-top revenue in the U.S. rose 37% in 2021 to $39.4 billion and is expected to nearly double to $69 billion by 2024, as subscriber additions, about 80 million this year, should level off to 50 million by 2024. 

According to its just-released report -- The Battle for the American Couch Potato, which analyzed more than 75  OTT services (and over 50 providers) including Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery -- Convergence said it expected U.S. OTT revenue to rise about 30% to $51 billion in 2022. 

At the same time, revenue and subscribers for traditional linear TV will continue their steady decline. Convergence said U.S. cable, satellite and telco TV access revenue fell 4% in 2021 to $91 billion, and should drop another 6% to $85.5 in billion in 2022, with further slippage in 2023 and 2024. Total U.S. TV subscribers dipped by 6.5 million in 2021, about the same as 2020, according to Convergence. That number should pick up to a loss of 7 million subscribers in 2022 and 7.2 million in 2024. 

The percentage of cord cutter/never households also should increase. Convergence estimated that  47% of U.S. households did not have a TV subscription with a cable, satellite or telco TV provider in 2021, rising to 53% in 2022 and 64% by 2024. 

Broadband customer growth is continuing to slow -- Convergence estimated that about 3.7 million high-speed internet subscribers were added in 2021, down  from 5.1 million in 2020, while revenue grew 10% to $79.6 billion. The researcher predicts that total broadband subscriber additions will tick up to 4.3 million (with a 7% revenue boost) as telco and fixed wireless additions improve, offsetting any sluggishness on the cable side.■

Dish Network shares fell to a new 52-week low Friday after the satellite giant reported larger than expected subscriber losses and a big decline in wireless customers as it gears up for a much anticipated Analyst Day next week.

Dish shares were trading as low as $23.41 on May 6, a new 52-week low and down 14.8% or $4.07 per share. 

The decline comes days before Dish is scheduled to hold its Analyst Day on May 10 in Las Vegas, offering analysts a deeper look into the satellite giant’s wireless strategy. 

Dish lost about 462,000 satellite and vMVPD subscribers in Q1, more than double the 230,000 it lost in the prior year. Satellite losses of 228,000 customers were significantly higher than consensus estimates of a loss of 140,000 subscribers. Sling TV lost 234,000 subscribers, nearly five times higher than the 53,000 losses most analysts expected, and most likely driven by a $5 per month price increase for the service in January. 

Also: Sling TV Loses Over 230K Subscribers in Q1 Amid $5 Price Hike

In a research note, MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote that Sling TV ended the period with 2.25 million customers, its lowest point since 2017.

“There was a time when Sling TV was to become the lifeboat for satellite TV,” Moffett wrote. “That lifeboat is taking on water.”  

In the retail wireless business, mainly its Boost Mobile prepaid offering, Dish lost 343,000 customers, again double the losses of the prior year and well above analysts’ consensus estimates of a loss of 181,000 customers. While Dish is focusing on building its own 5G wireless network — it activated its first market (Las Vegas) earlier this week after a long delay — the prepaid business was supposed to help fund the broader wireless efforts and serve as a pipeline of potential customers for the 5G offering. Now that appears to be less and less likely. 

Prepaid wireless losses are expected to be heavier going forward -- the Q1 results did not include the shut down of its 3G offering, which began on the last day of the quarter, although some customers likely cancelled service before the deadline.  

Moffett added in his report that the decline of the satellite TV and prepaid wireless business is especially concerning because they were supposed to be a source of cash and potential new subscribers for the standalone postpaid wireless offering. 

“That is, the retail businesses of today were to be the springboard to the network business of tomorrow,” Moffett wrote. “The reality is that Dish’s retail satellite TV business is losing subscribers, revenues, and EBITDA (the rate of decline in Sling TV subscribers was a particular shock), and their retail Wireless business isn’t just losing subscribers (rapidly), its EBITDA has actually turned negative.” 

Dish is under the gun to make its wireless network available to 20% of the U.S. by the end of June, a deadline the company said it is on track to make. On a conference call with analysts, Dish chairman Charlie Ergen noted that Dish doesn’t have to offer a fully robust service in June, adding that the federal requirement is that it offers data service to 20% of the country. 

“It’s not going to be as robust as we’d like,” Ergen said. “The main thing is to get the network up and operating, start to put water through the pipes, make sure that we see how it works.”

Dish has proposed to build a wireless network based on ORAN (open radio access network) technology, which it believes is not only less costly than incumbent wireless networks, but more efficient and higher quality. 

“Ultimately our ability to compete is going to be the quality of the network,” Ergen said, again pointing to its unique architecture. “It’s a modern network in a modern world.” ▪️

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen said Thursday that the satellite TV business would “melt away” without a merger between his company and DirecTV, but in addition to boosting that dying industry for a few more years, a merger could possibly serve another purpose -- funding Dish’s $10 billion wireless buildout. 

Ergen’s prediction that a DirecTV deal is inevitable has almost become a quarterly tradition. But continued speculation that a deal was more likely to happen now than ever -- fueled by dramatic subscriber declines at both companies -- helped drive Dish stock up by more than 11% Friday and 16% in the past two days. That helped erase the stock’s 2022 decline -- it was down 15% since December 31. But it’s still a long way from the $45 per share range the stock was trading at just five months ago.   

It’s been clear for years that Dish and DirecTV are basically shells of their former selves, and Dish shedding 273,000 video customers in Q4 -- well ahead of analysts’ consensus estimates -- is more proof that the satellite business needs help. Even Ergen seems to believe that time is quickly running out for the business.   

“I think it's inevitable that Dish and DirecTV go together,” Ergen said Thursday during Dish’s Q4 earnings conference call with analysts. “Otherwise, both companies will just melt away, and there'll be no service for customers. The regulatory reasons to not allow it, don't exist anymore.” 

Also: Satellite TV: Five Years, that’s All You’ve Got 

While there has been a lot written about the possible synergies associated with a DirecTV merger, Barclays Group media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar took a look at whether a deal could help Dish fund its $10 billion wireless network buildout. His conclusion: while regulatory hurdles are fewer, it will all come down to valuation.  

Dish has repeatedly said it will cost about $10 billion to build its 5G wireless network, and said Thursday that it expects capex to more than double this year to $2.5 billion from $1 billion in 2021 to pay for the network. Dish is expected to launch its first wireless market -- Las Vegas -- soon and revealed another 25 cities, including Dallas, Nashville, St. Louis and Oklahoma City, that will receive service in the coming months. Still, delays associated with difficulties surrounding integrating equipment and software from different vendors, and a snag regarding 911 emergency service have pushed back the buildout schedule. 

“We’re six months behind where we thought we’d be, and it’s my fault,” Ergen said on the conference call. “We just didn’t anticipate that we would have to do as much on the technical side.”

And though analysts have said in the past they believe the $10 billion buildout figure is surprisingly low, Ergen stressed that because its network configuration is different than any other provider -- he said it was more of an IT network than a wireless network -- the number is valid. 

“Because we're in the cloud, we can automate and do things and provision and other things that people can't do,” Ergen said on the call, adding that its labor costs are lower, too.

But it still is going to cost a lot. Analysts have noted that the $10 billion figure does not include tower leases for the service. In a research report, MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote that Dish has commitments for about $12.7 billion in tower leases, which is in addition to the $10 billion construction budget.

So where is Dish going to get the money for that? Ergen has said that funding is readily available, but some have wondered whether the source could be a merger with DirecTV.

Also: Does a Dish DirecTV Merger Make Sense? 

In January, the New York Post reported that Dish and TPG were in talks concerning a DirecTV merger deal, but so far neither side has confirmed that and there are no signs that a deal is close. 

Dish and DirecTV tried a merger before -- in 2001 -- but were blocked by government regulators who said a deal was anticompetitive. But the landscape has changed dramatically since then -- DirecTV and Dish combined have about the same number of TV customers that DirecTV alone had five years ago. But are still roadblocks to a combination. 

Venkateshwar also believed that regulatory challenges are fewer -- and could be even less if the government decided to impose broadband deployment conditions to a deal for both parties. AT&T already is committed to building out fiber broadband to rural markets. And Dish’s wireless offering is mainly targeted at smaller cities. Requiring the two expand their rural broadband footprint as a condition of a deal seems like a no-brainer.    

But what could derail a satellite TV deal, according to Venkateshwar, is valuation. 

The analyst pointed to AT&T’s sale of a 30% stake in DirecTV to private equity group TPG Capital, a deal that valued the satellite giant at $16.25 billion, about one-quarter the $65 billion AT&T paid for the asset back in 2015. And though he wrote that synergies in a deal could be significant -- between $1.5 billion and $2 billion -- valuation is where a transaction could hit a snag.

Venkateshwar estimated that the TPG deal valued DirecTV at about 3 times forward looking cash flow, but said the actual valuation could be lower considering non-cash fulfillment costs. 

“At these valuations, the deal will not make sense for Dish given the debt attached to its own DBS assets, as there may not be any equity value left at 3x EBITDA even including synergies,” Venkateshwar wrote. “A big difference in valuation between DTV and Dish would risk Dish implicitly walking away with a large part of the deal synergies and potentially future cash flow (if Dish continues to be an investor) in the combined company.”

That could be a problem for AT&T because its free cash flow guidance of about $20 billion pro forma for its WarnerMedia merger with Discovery relies on $1 billion in free cash flow from DirecTV. 

“This is why the transaction parameters may be difficult to narrow down, especially given Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen’s proclivity for an all or nothing approach to deal making and Dish’s own need for capital,” Venkateshwar wrote. 

There could be other deal structures, including having TPG invest in Dish prior to the assets being combined, or, like the WarnerMedia/Discovery transaction, Dish could split off the satellite TV assets before combining them and spinning it off to shareholders. 

“However, all these deals will require some flexibility from Dish to meet mid way to satisfy AT&T’s strategic needs, something that is not a given,” Venkateshwar wrote.

Dish could just sell the satellite TV asset outright and pocket the cash, but Venkateshwar added that, too, isn’t as easy as it sounds.

For starters, selling off the satellite TV business would remove a big cash generator for Dish, leaving it with a wireless business that isn’t generating as much revenue as its current free cash flow take. enough revenue  

“While the balance sheet would be much lighter in theory, raising further capital to fund its wireless business without any cash generating asset could become expensive,” Venkateshwar wrote. “This is why Dish will likely want a much higher valuation if it has to sell out of the asset, which is likely to make the deal less attractive for AT&T. This framework in essence highlights the challenges in negotiating the deal even absent regulatory issues.”

MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett has said that a DirecTV merger would be good for both companies in the past, but he isn’t convinced it’s possible. Moffett wrote in a Thursday research note that a merger really depends on synergies, and given Dish’s gross subscriber additions, there aren’t many to be found in a combination of the two.

“A merger wouldn’t allow for consolidation of satellite fleets, nor would it change industry growth rates, but it would reduce the activity levels required to achieve those growth rates by cutting churn, and gross additions, roughly in half,” Moffett wrote. “But with gross additions this low, there isn’t much synergy opportunity left here.”

Nevertheless, Dish stock was up 11% Friday, in part because of merger speculation but also because Ergen offered more details on the wireless rollout and the apparent resolution to another dilemma -- T-Mobile’s decision to shutter its 3G CDMA network, the very platform over which most of Dish’s Boost Mobile customers receive service. Ergen said that T-Mobile will shut off the CDMA service on March 31, and that the two are working together regarding communications, handset supplies and incentives. That should make some investors happy.   

For the rest, Dish plans to hold an Analyst Day on May 10 -- its first in about 15 years -- where it hopefully will address any remaining doubts and questions. In the meantime, the stock continues to be fueled by what Dish might do, not necessarily what it is doing. ■

About a year after it purchased a 30% interest in DirecTV for a bargain price, private equity firm TPG Capital is reportedly in talks with Dish Network about a possible merger of the satellite giants, a move that while familiar, nevertheless managed to boost Dish stock about 10% in the past two days.

Dish shares were up about 4% ($1.43 per share) to $35.38 on January 11 and rose another 4% to $36.83 at 11:03 a.m. on January 12. 

The New York Post reported January 11 that TPG and Dish were in advanced talks concerning DirecTV, but that the deal has hit a potential snag amid Dish founder and chairman Charlie Ergen’s supposed demands for a big chunk of voting shares and a greater say in decision making for the combined company. Together, Dish and DirecTV would become the largest pay TV distributor in the country with about 23 million subscribers, edging out Comcast by a few million customers, but coming during a time when consumers have been canceling their pricey video subscriptions for streaming services.    

Talks of a Dish-DirecTV merger have been around for decades. The two first stepped to the merger podium in 2001, only to be shot down by federal regulators. With the satellite business in steep decline — Dish has lost 5 million TV customers and DirecTV has shed 10 million since 2017 — some have speculated that the government may be more open to a merger this time around.

Whether federal regulators would approve a deal this time isn't a given. Just two years ago, the U.S. Justice Department let Dish know that it would not sign off on a merger. Maybe that stance has softened, maybe not.

Ergen has said for years that he believed a merger with DirecTV was “inevitable,” and some have claimed a combined Dish-DirecTV would have about $1 billion in cost synergies. 

Every single business in the pay TV space — distributor, content provider, streamer — wants additional scale, and having 23 million TV subscribers (15 million from DirecTV, 8 million from Dish) would deliver that, at least for the short term. Federal plans to pump about $65 billion to help extend broadband into more rural markets could also bode well for a merger. 

From a financial standpoint, the idea that a deal could be done cheaply for the parties involved also makes it more palatable. TPG bought its 30% interest in DirecTV last year for a price that valued the entire company at about $16.5 billion. AT&T paid about $66 billion for DirecTV in 2017. 

Also: AT&T and TPG: There is No Why 

Still, on the surface, putting together two companies in steep decline only seems to prolong the inevitable race to zero customers. But others say that any delay to that apocalyptic conclusion could have some real economic value and short-term benefit for consumers. 

Also: Satellite TV: Five Years, that’s All You’ve Got 

In an email message, MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett said that while he has no idea whether talks between the two companies are actually going on, a merger deal has made sense for a long time. 

“Satellite TV will remain the only available option for rural Americans for some time — rural broadband buildouts take time — and ultimately regulators will have to take that into consideration,” Moffett said in the email. “Is one stronger satellite operator better for rural Americans than two weaker ones?”

Sanford Bernstein media analyst Peter Supino said in an email that a merger seemed plausible because “the point is to capture the efficiencies of putting the two companies together.”

Also: Getting Rid of DirecTV Won’t Be So Easy 

He added that combined EBITDA would be billions of dollars more than what the two generate today, and there are opportunities to reduce programming, network, subscriber acquisition and retention costs, as well as general and administrative expenses (G&A).

And even though Dish has shifted its focus to wireless — it is currently in the throes of building out its network — a DirecTV combination could provide a valuable cache of future mobile customers. 

More Mobile Opportunity

“The satellite TV business’s value to Dish is primarily financial, but to the extent Dish becomes more active in the future in the mobile services business, those TV subs represent potential customers to which Dish could market efficiently,” Supino said.

He added that Dish’s pitch to the Federal Communications Commission for the deal could be that the merger could curb future programming cost inflation by giving the combined company more bargaining power, and a merger would allow satellite TV to survive for a longer period. 

LightShed TMT Partners partner and media and technology analyst Rich Greenfield predicted that Dish and DirecTV would get together this year, part of his January Top 22 TMT Predictions for 2022. While talk of a combination has gone on for years, only to be quashed by regulators, he said believes this is the year for a combination to take place. 

“No, really,” Greenfield wrote. “We believe the regulatory risks today are not high given the state of the Pay TV market. Frankly, if Ergen can’t get it announced this year, it might never happen.” ■

With the official launch of its first market expected in the next few months, Dish Network said it has named John Swieringa president and chief operating officer of its Dish Wireless unit, responsible for all aspects of the business including deployment and management of its 5G broadband network.

Swieringa has been with Dish for about 14 years, most recently as EVP and Group President of retail wireless where he was responsible for all aspects of Dish’s retail wireless business, including strategy, operations, sales and customer service for its retail wireless brands, including prepaid wireless service Boost Mobile. Dish said he will continue those responsibilities in his new position. 

"John's a 14-year veteran of Dish, and is committed to changing the way the world communicates with our unique capabilities," Ergen said in a press release "His experience in our overall business will help to maximize our wireless opportunities within all lines of the business. He and his team will deploy and monetize Dish's network while advancing our retail, enterprise and wholesale market opportunities.”

Dish Wireless has been assembling a management team as it prepares for the launch of its first market -- Las Vegas -- in the first quarter of this year. Swieringa’s direct reports include EVP and chief commercial officer Stephen Bye, EVP of network development Dave Mayo, EVP and chief network officer Marc Rouanne and EVP of retail wireless Stephen Stokols. Swieringa will report to Ergen. 

"I am excited to lead and further integrate our wireless strategy, deployment and operations efforts," said Swieringa. "We have a significant opportunity as we prepare to commercialize our wireless investments and deliver value to our customers, company and shareholders."

 Some analysts have expressed concern about Dish’s ability to compete in an already crowded consumer wireless market, and have called the company’s claim that it can build out the network for $10 billion as doubtful. 

Dish Wireless expects to launch its first commercial market in Las Vegas in the first quarter of this year, after missing earlier deadlines in Q3 and Q4. Dish executives have said it could have explained better how it will plans to keep the cost of building the network -- based on Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) technology that utilizes a series of small antennas and base stations to deliver service via the cloud -- down. The company said in November that it had begun beta testing of the wireless network with "friendly users" (mainly its own and vendor employees) in Las Vegas.   

Also: Dish Wireless: Strong Stomachs Required 

“We’re not exactly understood by the industry as much, and part of that is because we don’t spend a lot of time going through strategically what we’re doing,” Ergen said on a Q3 earnings call with analysts in November. “It’s a complicated story and it’s a little bit easier for us to just go do it and show people, as opposed to trying to explain it.”  

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen told analysts Monday that he was “disappointed” that Sinclair Broadcast Group has decided to negotiate its upcoming retrans agreement in the press, adding that there is still some hope that a deal can be reached.

On a conference call with analysts to discuss Q2 results, Ergen said talks are continuing. Sinclair said earlier this morning that it believed it was unlikely a deal could be reached.

“I’m disappointed that they put a press release out that they expect the networks to come down. I think we have until Aug. 16,” Ergen said on the conference call. “Many negotiations come down to the wire, so we’re still going to bargain in good faith.”

That was likely a nod to Federal Communications Commission requirements that all parties in retrans agreements negotiate in good faith. Ergen added that there are other ways for his customers to receive the broadcast channels, either via antennas, Locast, or streaming services like Paramount Plus and Peacock.

But many analysts had hoped that the Sinclair RSNs -- which Dish dropped in 2019  -- would be included in the retrans talks. Ergen said he sympathized with the broadcaster, adding that regarding the RSNs, Dish first negotiated for the Fox Sports RSNs when they were owned by Disney, which purchased them as part of its $71.3 billion buy of certain Fox assets in March 2019. By the time Disney sold those channels to Sinclair later in May 2019, Ergen said reaching a carriage deal for the channels became a moot point. 

Also Read: Sinclair RSNs: Focus on the Dish Deal 

“By the time Sinclair owned it  and was able to negotiate it, our customers that wanted regional sports had left,” Ergen said. “There was no way in fairness to our customers that we could tax them in a basic package, when almost nobody who wanted regional sports was left. 

“I think there are innovative ways to reinvigorate the regional sports networks, Sinclair themselves have talked about it in a direct to consumer product,” Ergen continued. “We’ll continue to work with Sinclair to the extent they want to try to work with us in a win-win situation. But if not, … my expectation and hope would be that ultimately the companies try to resolve all the issues of concern to both parties.”

Ergen was mostly talking about the broadcast channels, but he said he would be open to any deal that included the RSNs, within reason. 

“If there are some opportunities in regional sports that make sense for us and Sinclair, we’re happy to talk about anything that’s interesting and helps our customers, but we’re not interested in taxing our customers when they don't watch the channels,” Ergen said. “Our customers will understand that. We may lose some customers if the networks go down. We’ve been through this before. The impact of [losing] local channels used to be devastating, and it’s still pretty bad, but it's not the same. And there are other alternatives.”

Later, Ergen said that the dispute with Sinclair is largely due to the fees they are requesting, and not an attempt to bundle the RSN networks with broadcast channels.

“At the end of the day it’s about money, it’s about economics,” Ergen said. “That hasn’t changed in any programming negotiation that I’ve ever been involved in.”

In a press release of its own issued after the conference call, Dish said Sinclair is demanding nearly $1 billion in retrans fees for its stations, which it claims is a “massive increase,” from its previous agreement. 

“Sinclair is making these outrageous demands, turning its back on its public interest obligation and putting customers in the middle of its negotiations,” Dish TV group president Brian Neylon in a press release. “...This negotiating tactic is used to upset our customers and intimidate us into accepting outrageous contract terms — a tactic the channel owner uses frequently.”

Dish directed customers to its DISHPromise.com website for more information, adding that it still hoped a deal could still be reached. 

“There is still time to reach an agreement with Sinclair that is fair for all parties involved, especially our customers,” Neylon said. “We will continue to fight on behalf of Dish customers to keep TV bills as low as possible. Despite the fact that Sinclair has walked away from the table multiple times, we stand ready to negotiate in good faith.”

With its retransmission consent agreement with Dish Network expected to expire next week,  Sinclair Broadcast Group said Monday that it is “unlikely” that it will be able to reach a deal with the satellite TV giant.

Sinclair said that means 108 broadcast TV stations and the Tennis Channel will most likely go dark to about 3.5 million Dish Network subscribers across the country. In addition to the loss of a big chunk of its retrans revenue, the lack of a deal also could have repercussions for Sinclair's regional sports networks, housed under the Diamond Sports Group umbrella, which analysts have said were counting on a Dish deal to be reached.  

“...it is unlikely that a carriage agreement with Dish Network will be reached before the August 16, 2021 expiration of their current agreement for Dish’s carriage of Sinclair’s broadcast stations and Tennis Channel,” Sinclair said in a press release. “As a result, all Sinclair broadcast TV stations (see list below) and Tennis Channel would no longer be carried by Dish Network.”

Sinclair stock took an early beating on Monday, falling as much as low as $29.39 each in morning trading (down 5.2% or  $1.61 each). The stock closed at $30.08 (down 92 cents each or 3%) on Aug. 9.  Dish shares were relatively stable, closing at $42.25 on Aug. 9, up 0.7%, or about 28 cents each. .  

Sinclair said 97 of the stations in question are ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC affiliates, and are in markets ranging from Las Vegas; Washington, D.C.; and Minneapolis; to Boise, Idaho; and Butte, Montana. The deal also could serve a blow to Dish's satellite TV  subscribers, which will lose access to NFL football programming, local news and sports. The NFL's regular season is slated to start in September, and the preseason begins on Aug. 12 on the NFL Network. The first broadcast preseason game is slated for CBS on Aug. 29. 

"We have tried unsuccessfully to reach fair and customary terms with Dish Network for the renegotiation of our retransmission consent," Sinclair general counsel David Gibber said in a press release. "Given the status of these negotiations, we feel it is important to alert Dish Network subscribers to the real risk that some of their favorite stations will no longer be available through Dish Network including their access to live, local news, popular syndicated programming, sports programming including college and NFL football, and the network programming of our ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and CW affiliates in those markets. Dish subscribers are also at risk of losing Tennis Channel. With this loss, tennis fans will not be able to see wall-to-wall coverage of the Western & Southern Open from Cincinnati, Ohio in the run-up to the last Grand Slam of the year, the US Open."

Analysts had hoped that carriage of the RSNs, which have been dark to Dish customers since 2019, would be included in the retrans talks. However, with the apparent collapse of those negotiations, it is unlikely that the RSNs would return to the satellite carrier anytime soon.

Also Read: Sinclair RSNs: Focus on the Dish Deal 

In an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, Sinclair apparently baked in Dish carriage of the RSNs into its revenue estimates for Diamond Sports. Some analysts have said a Dish deal cold represent as much as $400 million in revenue for those channels. 

Dish is no stranger to carriage disagreements -- Sinclair estimated that the satellite TV company has dropped about 230 channels over the years. But some had hoped that with the recent return of HBO to the Dish lineup -- after a three-year hiatus -- that there was a chance that the two may have been able to squeeze out a compromise.

"We apologize to our viewers for the inconvenience this may cause although our programming will continue to be available either through other program providers or via over-the-air antenna reception," Gibber continued in the press release. "We encourage subscribers in these markets to contact Dish Network and let them know that it is important to them that DISH Network carry these stations and that they should switch to another TV provider if they care about their news, local and national sports, and top tier entertainment programming."

Dish officials did not immediately return a request for comment. The company, which released its Q2 financial results this morning,  is scheduled to conduct a conference call with analysts at noon today (Aug. 9). It is expected that the Sinclair negotiations will be one of the topics discussed.

Here are the stations that will be affected if a deal cannot be reached:

Abilene-Sweetwater, TX: KTXS (ABC)

Albany - Schenectady - Troy, NY: WRGB (CBS)

Albany, GA: WFXL (FOX)

Amarillo, TX: KVII (ABC), KVII-2 (CW)

Austin, TX: KEYE (CBS)

Bakersfield, CA: KBAK (CBS), KBFX (FOX)

Baltimore, MD: WBFF (FOX), WBFF-2 (MyTV)

Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX: KFDM (CBS), KFDM-3 (FOX), KFDM-3 VIE (FOX), KFDM-2 (CW)

Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa), AL: WBMA (ABC), WTTO (CW), WABM (MyTV)

Boise, ID: KBOI (CBS), KYUU (CW Plus)

Buffalo, NY: WUTV (FOX), WNYO (MyTV)

Butte-Bozeman, MT: KTVM (NBC)

Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, IA: KGAN (CBS), KGAN-2 (FOX)

Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, IL: WICD (ABC)

Charleston, SC: WCIV-2 (ABC), WCIV (MyTV)

Charleston-Huntington, WV: WCHS (ABC), WCHS-2 (FOX)

Chattanooga, TN: WTVC (ABC), WTVC-2 (FOX)

Chico-Redding, CA: KRCR (ABC), KRVU (MyTV)

Cincinnati, OH: WKRC (CBS)

Columbia, SC: WACH (FOX)

Columbia-Jefferson City, MO: KRCG (CBS)

Columbus, OH: WSYX (ABC), WSYX-3 (FOX)

Corpus Christi, TX: KSCC (FOX), KTOV (MyTV)

Dayton, OH: WKEF (ABC), WKEF-2 (FOX)

Des Moines-Ames, IA: KDSM (FOX)

El Paso (Las Cruces), TX-NM: KFOX (FOX), KDBC (CBS)

Eugene, OR: KVAL (CBS)

Eureka, CA: KAEF (ABC), KECA (CW)

Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, MI: WSMH (FOX)

Fresno-Visalia, CA: KMPH (FOX), KFRE (CW)

Gainesville, FL: WGFL (CBS), WGFL-2 (MyTV)

Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI: WWMT (CBS), WWMT-2 (CW)

Green Bay-Appleton, WI: WLUK (FOX), WCWF (CW)

Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, NC: WXLV (ABC), WMYV (MyTV)

Greenville-New Bern-Washington, NC: WCTI (ABC)

Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson, SC-NC: WLOS (ABC)

Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, PA: WHP (CBS), WHP-3 (CW)

Johnstown-Altoona-State College, PA: WJAC (NBC)

Las Vegas, NV: KSNV (NBC), KVCW (CW), KVCW-2 (MyTV)

Lexington, KY: WDKY (FOX)

Lincoln & Hastings-Kearny, NE: KHGI (ABC), KFXL (FOX)

Little Rock-Pine Bluff, AR: KATV (ABC)

Macon, GA: WGXA (FOX), WGXA-2 (ABC)

Madison, WI: WMSN (FOX)

Medford-Klamath Falls, OR: KTVL (CBS), KTVL-2 (CW Plus)

Milwaukee, WI: WVTV (CW), WVTV-2 (MyTV)

Minneapolis, MN: WUCW (CW)

Missoula, MT: KECI (NBC)

Mobile-Pensacola (Ft. Walton Beach), AL-FL: WEAR (ABC), WFGX (MyTV/ThisTV)

Myrtle Beach-Florence, SC: WPDE (ABC)

Nashville, TN: WZTV (FOX), WUXP (MyTV)

Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA: WTVZ (MyTV)

Oklahoma City, OK: KOKH (FOX), KOCB (CW)

Omaha, NE: KPTM (FOX)

Ottumwa-Kirksville, IA-MO: KTVO (ABC), KTVO-2 (CBS)

Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg, KY-MO-IL: KBSI (FOX), WDKA (MyTV)

Pittsburgh, PA: WPGH (FOX), WPNT (MyTV)

Portland-Auburn, ME: WGME (CBS)

Portland, OR: KATU (ABC)

Providence-New Bedford, RI-MA: WJAR (NBC)

Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk, IL-MO-IA: KHQA (CBS), KHQA-2 (ABC)

Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville), NC: WLFL (CW), WRDC (MyTV)

Reno, NV: KRXI (FOX)

Richmond-Petersburg, VA: WRLH (FOX)

Roanoke-Lynchburg, VA: WSET (ABC)

Rochester, NY: WUHF (FOX)

Salt Lake City, UT: KUTV (CBS), KMYU (MyTV)

San Angelo, TX: KTXE (ABC)

San Antonio, TX: KABB (FOX), WOAI (NBC)

Savannah, GA: WTGS (FOX)

Seattle-Tacoma, WA: KOMO (ABC)

Sioux City, IA: KPTH (FOX), KPTH-3 (CBS), KPTH-3 VIE (CBS)

South Bend-Elkhart, IN: WSBT (CBS), WSBT-2 (FOX)

Spokane, WA: KLEW (CBS)

St. Louis, MO: KDNL (ABC)

Syracuse, NY: WSTM (NBC), WSTQ (CW)

Tallahassee-Thomasville, FL-GA: WTWC (NBC), WTWC-2 (FOX)

Toledo, OH: WNWO (NBC)

Traverse City-Cadillac, MI: WPBN (NBC)

Tri-Cities, TN-VA: WCYB (NBC), WCYB-2 (CW)

Tulsa, OK: KTUL (ABC)

Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD): WJLA (ABC)

West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL: WPEC (CBS), WTVX (CW)

Wheeling-Steubenville, WV-OH: WTOV (NBC), WTOV-2 (FOX)

Wichita-Hutchinson Plus, KS: KSAS (FOX)

Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hazleton, PA: WOLF (FOX), WQMY (MyTV)

Yakima-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick, WA: KIMA (CBS), KIMA-2 (CW Plus)

Hidden amid the flurry of praise that surrounded AT&T over its relatively strong first quarter performance, mainly for growing its streaming business, was a sentence from one analyst report that kind of brought the whole media transformation narrative home for me in a compact 23 words: “If DirecTV continues to bleed subs at its average pace over the last year, there will be no subs left in 5 years.”

Now, at the risk of showing my age, after reading that sentence, all I could think about was Ziggy Stardust. 

But then again, a lot can happen in five years.

What was almost a throwaway line in Bernstein media analyst Peter Supino’s report on AT&T, a line that would have seemed impossible to utter 10 or 15 years ago when DirecTV was still considered to be the gold standard for pay TV, is now considered to be even a little conservative. Now, even after attracting a new investor in TPG Capital -- which arguably gets an interest in the satellite company at a bargain price -- DirecTV, in many minds, has been relegated to little more than a cash flow play. 

Also Read: AT&T and TPG: There is No Why

And what’s more, no one seems to care. Cable operators gave up on video growth years ago. Consumers just want to stream now and once old folks who cling to their pricey cable TV subscriptions, like me, begin to smarten up or die off, there won’t be anyone left to pay for so-called traditional TV.

Supino, in an email message, clarified his take on DirecTV, which he said was a “uniquely bad story,” adding that Bernstein believes that “the NFL inclusion of the broadcast associated streaming channels in the league’s new TV deals is a harbinger of accelerated change. As such rights move to streaming, soon there will be no reason to receive TV in a scheduled, broadcast format. In this context we think the broadcast networks and general interest cable channels, which commonly benefit from real estate in the legacy TV bundle that helps them monetize marginal programming and sub-scale channels, had better take more risk with the amount of programming they invest in their streaming ventures.”

I’ve written a lot about AT&T’s approach to distribution, so I won’t bore you with those details again. But one interesting note from the Supino report -- of the 2.7 million HBO Max additions in Q1, about 1 million to 1.5 million of them were likely people who are receiving the service via AT&T Mobility and/or Fiber bundles. In other words, they are getting HBO Max for free.    

But it is becoming pretty evident that the industry is moving toward  an app based future that doesn’t include a traditional pay TV relationship. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise, except for the speed at which it is happening.

Earlier this month, at a conference run by Fierce Video, Major League Baseball chief operations and strategy officer Chris Marinak said he  was encouraging teams and regional sports networks to accelerate their plans to go direct-to-consumer. A lot are already doing it. Bally Sports Networks -- formerly Fox Sports RSNs -- have said they plan to offer a DTC option next year. YES Network, home of the New York Yankees and partially owned by Sinclair and Amazon, launched their authenticated app this season, but it could easily accommodate a DTC offering when the team deems to do so. 

Also Read: Sports and OTT: Streaming Could Squeeze the Last Vestige of Appointment TV

The idea is that the RSNs would eventually offer a hybrid -- linear distribution as well as DTC. But in the end, it’s likely that the model will shift entirely to DTC after awhile, and that would be the final nail in Pay TV’s coffin. Sports, especially exclusive sports, has been the glue that held the pay TV bundle together. Without that, and with ESPN Plus and Fox Sports Go and the like already available via app, the reasons to hold on to a traditional pay TV subscription are quickly fading.   

DirecTV lost 620,000 subscribers in Q1, and since Q4 2018 it has shed about 7.1 million. Once the largest pay TV company in the country with 20 million customers, DirecTV now has about 13 million. The pace of those losses has picked up over the past 12 months to about 2.5 million a year, so yes, Supino is right, at that rate there will be no subscribers left by this time in 2026. Dish Network, which has about 8.8 million satellite TV subs, loses about 1.5 million TV customers per year, so using that math it won’t have any subscribers in about the same time frame, five years. 

Now, I’m not so sure that pay TV is going to disappear in five or 10 years, but it definitely won’t look the same. It’s not like all those subscribers will suddenly just stop watching TV, but they will find another way to watch it. DirecTV and Dish aren’t strictly satellite companies either. AT&T has an IP video offering, (AT&T TV), a streaming option (AT&T TV Now, formerly DirecTV Now, but they aren’t taking any new customers). Dish has an OTT service with around  2.5 million customers, Sling TV. 

And the rest of the industry isn’t immune to cord cutting either. Cable operators have seen their video dominance erode greatly over the past decade. And that got me thinking as to how much time cable has left. 

While the narrative in the cable industry has shifted dramatically in the past couple of years toward broadband, the fact is that cable is losing video customers too at a pretty high rate. In the past two years, according to MoffettNathanson, cable companies shed 4 million customers as their collective hold on the industry fell from 51 million in 2018 to 47 million in 2020. At that pace, 2 million lost cable subscribers per year, the industry will have 0 video customers by 2045. 

Also Read: Verizon FiosTV Subs Drop Back to 2011 Levels

But chances are it happens a lot faster than that.

“The old adage in tech is that things change less in five years, and more in ten, than anyone could ever imagine,” Moffett said in an email message.  “I think that’s the rule that will apply here.  Will there still be a linear video business in five years?  Absolutely.  Will there still be one in ten?  I’m not so sure.”

Moffett added that waiting for pay TV subscribers to totally disappear isn’t the way to gauge the industry either. 

“I don’t think extrapolating current trends all the way to zero is the right way to think about it,” Moffett continued.  “That might be the way the demand side works – a gradual decline in the number of older ‘traditionalists’ might translate to a similarly gradual decline in demand for linear video – but it’s not the way the supply side will work.”

Moffett said there already is evidence that both broadcast and cable networks are “strip-mining” their channels for fodder for their streaming services. Just look at the most recent National Football League rights deal for evidence of that. 

“There will be a point of no return when the whole linear ecosystem simply unravels, and it will be supply rather than demand that unravels it,” Moffett said. “That’s more than five years away, but it may be less than ten.”

So distributors won’t kill cable, networks will. That seems right. When it really comes down to it, any video distribution service is only as good as its programming. Satellite used to claim better pictures and superior programming to cable and they were right. Then, when it launched Sunday Ticket out-of-market NFL packages, it one-upped cable sports offerings and customer growth soared.  Now, some pundits are predicting that with DirecTV’s customer base declining rapidly, Sunday Ticket could go to another distributor, perhaps Comcast or its streaming service Peacock. 

With every programmer either with an app or planning one, a future where all programming is obtained via some direct-to-consumer relationship is not so far-fetched. In fact, distributors may prefer it that way. 

Because while juggling separate subscriptions to Netflix and Disney Plus and HBO Max and Amazon Prime and Paramount Plus and Discovery Plus all may be fairly manageable to the average consumer now, once every channel goes the DTC route, it could quickly become a nightmare.

Having cable operators serve as “app aggregators,” bundling different programming apps based on genres or prices or something else, while they are selling broadband, would seem to solve a couple of problems. Content companies could stick to what they know best -- creating programming -- while leaving the nuts and bolts of distribution -- billing and customer service -- to the segment that counts those functions as key components of their respective wheelhouses. 

Cable operators could bundle apps in packages for consumers reminiscent of the way C-band satellite programming used to be sold, moving the charges collected -- minus a little fee off the top -- to the respective programmers. Practically every analyst I’ve spoken to over the past few years thinks this is the direction the industry is heading. When I proposed the same scenario to one long-time cable guy about a year ago he had one caveat: “It won’t be a little off the top.”

It’s just that now it may happen sooner, rather than later.  

No, there does not appear to be this strange, unseen, counterintuitive demand for linear satellite television in rural markets.

Startup Orby TV, which was launched by former Starz CRO Michael Thornton and ex Disney executive Tres Izzard in September 2019 to ostensibly tap into a sizable craving for reliable linear pay TV service in hard-to-reach regions of the U.S., is calling it quits. 

Here’s the letter posted on the company’s website today:

Dear Orby TV Customer,

We are sorry to announce that Orby TV has closed its doors, and the Orby TV service has ended. It was an honor to serve you.

To provide you with an affordable satellite TV option going forward, we have coordinated with DISH on a special offer for Orby TV customers. This includes a monthly DISH programming package for $52.99 (includes first receiver) and cost to switch as low as $100. For more information about this limited time offer, please call DISH at 844-268-3304 and mention the offer code ORBY or visit dish.com/orby.

Headquartered out of Burbank, Calif., Orby TV let users configure up to four rooms with CPE they buy themselves. The Orby TV satellite receiver and remote cost $100, or $200 for one with a DVR. The company is offering installation of the the satellite dish, as well as the TV antenna, and wiring and set-up of one receiver/DVR, for $150. Each additional room costs $50.

It’s unclear as to how many subscribers Orby amassed in just over 16 months of operation. Certainly, the larger, publicly traded satellite companies have taken it on the chin. Dish Network lost another 578,000 satellite TV customers in 2020, its customer base now stands at just over 8.8 million, and the company is rapidly pivoting to the consumer wireless business. 

AT&T just entered an agreement with private equity firm TPG to spin off DirecTV, valuing the operation at just over $15 billion after paying nearly $49 billion for it six years ago. 

Comcast said Wednesday that it has named Dana Strong CEO of Sky Group, replacing Jeremy Darroch who will step down from that role to become executive chairman of the British satellite unit. Strong, currently president of Comcast Cable’s Consumer Services, will report directly to Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts.

Darroch has been CEO of Sky since 2007, and continued in that role when Comcast purchased the company in 2018 for $31 billion. He has had a long career at the British satellite giant, joining the company in 2004 as chief financial officer in 2004. 

During that time, he has tripled the size of the business and led the transformation of the company into Europe’s largest multi-platform TV provider with nearly 24 million customers. 

Strong has been a rising star at Comcast since joining the company in 2018 as president of Consumer Services.  In that role she was responsible for  Comcast’s residential business and has led new product and market launches in broadband, video, home security, and mobile. During her tenure, the company achieved record subscriber and broadband growth and the company’s highest levels of customer satisfaction.

“There are few businesses that have the track record of Sky, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead the company,” Strong said in a press release. “I’ve always admired Sky’s innovation, brand, and exceptional focus on the customer. I look forward to working with this incredible team to continue to grow the business and shape the next chapter for Sky.”

No replacement for Strong's Consumer Services position has been named, but Comcast said her leadership team will report to Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson during the search. 

Strong has more than 25 years experience in international markets, having served as president and chief operating officer of Virgin Media in the UK, chief transformation officer of Liberty Global as well as CEO of UPC Ireland and COO of AUSTAR in Australia.

“I would like to thank Jeremy for his exceptional leadership of Sky and his partnership since we acquired the company,” Roberts said in a press release. “Sky’s values have been a perfect fit for ours and I credit Jeremy with building an incredible culture and executing the seamless integration with Comcast. He and his team have established a world-class brand and a strong, well-run business that will continue to flourish. Jeremy has been a terrific colleague to me and everyone at Sky, but I respect his decision and I am pleased that he’s agreed to stay on to help with the transition and advise the company.”

“I am delighted that Dana will be taking the helm at Sky,” Roberts continued. “She is an accomplished executive with an extraordinary ability to transform, inspire and drive positive change. She quickly made her mark on our US business, driving growth and innovation with an unwavering commitment to our customers. Her global experience and vision coupled with her leadership and track record at some of the largest media and telecommunications companies in the world make her the perfect leader for Sky.”

In the press release, Darroch said that his decision to step down from the CEO spot wasn’t easy, but he believes the timing is right. 

“I feel incredibly lucky to have been surrounded by colleagues who care as deeply as I do about this business and our customers and work tirelessly every day to make their lives better,” Darroch said in the release. “I would like to thank all of my colleagues at Sky and also Brian and the team at Comcast who I have thoroughly enjoyed working with. I have no doubt that Dana will take Sky into a new and exciting future.”

Charter Communications surprised the cable community by actually adding video customers in Q2 during a pandemic, but chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge told an industry audience that the increases were no fluke and in fact are quite sustainable.

Charter added 102,000 video customers in Q2,  a time when other larger cable operators were shedding large numbers of pay TV subscribers as the pandemic forced some homes to opt for higher data speeds and a streaming video connection.  But Rutledge, speaking at the virtual Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference Wednesday, said that a combination of good service and a substantial number of customers defecting from satellite TV -- DirecTV lost about 886,000 subscribers in the same period  -- helped Charter reverse the trend.

Rutledge attributed the video growth to the strength of Charter’s Spectrum broadband offering -- it added 825,000 broadband customers in Q2, a record -- and the rapid decline of satellite TV. Satellite TV service providers DirecTV and Dish Network lost about 1 million subscribers in Q2 alone, and nearly 8 million customers since Q3 2018, according to MoffettNathanson.  

“We still have a macro trend of cord-cutting going on, meaning people have a hard time paying for the fat bundle of services, but we’re selling other products as well,” Rutledge said.

“We look at our future in video as more of a video store of a whole range of kinds of products, including tiers, sports channels, traditional video products, linear products, AVOD products and making that an easy transaction for the customer and make that part of the overall connectivity experience," he continued. “We think we can continue to do that and that is the fundamental aspect of video that we’re interested in.”

Rutledge said the health of the video business will continue to depend on the sustained growth of broadband -- he noted that satellite TV customers that switch to Charter often buy a broadband connection too. And broadband growth is showing no signs of letting up. 

"As they come loose from their satellite relationships, they are reevaluating their broadband connections as well,” Rutledge said.

Rutledge also was optimistic about the rapid growth of Charter’s Spectrum Mobile wireless service. Spectrum Mobile added about 325,000 customers in Q2, ending the period with 1.7 million subscribers.

“I think it will accelerate,” Rutledge said of Spectrum Mobile’s growth. “I think we’re just getting going.” 

African American-owned television station owner Circle City Broadcasting and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters have taken Dish Network to court, filing a suit in U.S. District Court in Indiana claiming discrimination by the satellite TV distributor, who they claim has refused to properly negotiate retransmission consent deals with minority-owned broadcasters.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in Indianapolis, claims that Dish has refused to carry stations owned by Circle City Broadcasting (CW affiliate WISH-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate WNDY-TV in Indianapolis), despite having carried the properties when they were owned by white companies.

“We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against these baseless claims,” Dish said in a statement.

Circle City purchased the stations from Nexstar Broadcast Group in April 2019 for $42.5 million. The sale was part of several such deals Nexstar made to divest stations to gain regulatory approval for its purchase of Tribune Media.

According to the suit, Dish had paid retransmission consent fees to Nexstar for its stations, including WISH-TV and WNDY-TV, in the past, but once the properties were sold, the satellite giant’s attitude changed.

Circle City claims that Dish’s refusal to pay retrans fees for its stations reflects an industry-wide discriminatory policy against minority-owned stations, “paying the non-minority broadcasters significant fees to rebroadcast their stations and channels while offering practically no fees to the historically disadvantaged broadcaster or programmer for the exact same or superior programming.” And it claimed, “there are extreme instances where Dish is not offering to carry minority channels at all,” using African-American owned cable, radio, syndication, web and marketing company Urban One as an example.

Included in the exhibits to the suit is a letter from Urban One chairman and CEO Alfred Liggins III to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to consider Dish’s “questionable track record in the area of diversity,” when it evaluated the satellite company’s role in the T-Mobile-Sprint merger. As part of that deal, Dish agreed to purchase about 9.3 million Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile prepaid wireless accounts, many of which are owned by minority customers.

“Urban One urges the Commission to ensure that their interests will not be harmed by the acquisition by Dish,” Liggins III wrote.

Circle City claims that shortly after it closed on its purchase of stations from Nexstar, Dish offered retrans rates that were a “tiny fraction” and “pennies on the dollar” of what the stations had been receiving in the past. Dish, Circle City claims, refused to negotiate with the station owner, “effectively hobbling Circle City’s ability to serve its market.”

Circle City owner and CEO DuJuan McCoy said in the suit that the stations offered to operate under the same retrans deal as the previous owner, but that Dish also refused.

“Dish has now publicly accused me of demanding unprecedented rates for the stations,” McCoy wrote in a letter to the FCC included in the suit.

He added that Circle City had managed to secure new retrans agreements with major distributors in their coverage area, including Comcast and Charter. But it has had worse luck with satellite operators -- DirecTV has been without the stations since Jan. 31  and Dish has not carried the stations since Oct. 4. 

Circle City is suing for retransmission fees at a fair market rate, actual and punitive damages, interest, reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, according to the suit. 

The Congressional Research Service has released a report on STELAR re-authorization and related TV carriage issues, and while it is primarily a primer on the law and various bills to reauthorize it, it also suggests that if the law sunsets, more retrans blackouts would likely ensue. 

STELAR provides for the compulsory license that allows satellite operators to import distant network affiliated TV stations into markets that lack them and for the provision that requires all MVPDs and TV stations to negotiate retransmission consent in good faith. 

Related: Senate Takes Long Look at STELAR 

CRS "provides policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation.”

In the report, the author's summary concludes with a dotted-line connecting the dots between sunset and blackout. 

Dot 1) "If both the Copyright and Communications Act provisions of the STELA Reauthorization Act expire, broadcast station owners would likely have greater advantage in negotiating with cable, telco and satellite operators than they do currently," the report said.  The good faith bargaining requirement is one of the provisions.

Dot 2) "When broadcast station owners and cable, telco and/or satellite operators do not reach retransmission consent agreements, the station owners may “black out” their signals," it said.  

Dotted line) "If Congress does not renew the FCC’s mediation role and retransmission consent disputes were to become more frequent, cable, telco, and satellite subscribers could experience more interruptions of broadcast television programming." 

That is the argument MVPDs have been making for retaining the good faith provision. 

The report features some clip-and-save elements, including a timeline for the two-decade-long process of renewing STELAR, which expires every five years, and a summary of the current legislative efforts in the House and Senate to renew it, or alternatively, provide a glide path for eliminating the compulsory license.

Swedish streaming company Nordic Entertainment Group has agreed to combine its Viasat Consumer satellite pay TV and broadband TV operations with Telenor Group’s Norwegian satellite TV unit Canal Digital, forming a 50-50 regional television distribution joint venture that will create a scaled, simpler and streamlined content venture in Scandinavia.

According to the companies, the JV will have combined sales of $766 million and about 1.257 million subscribers. The combined company will be headquartered in Stockholm and Oslo and the boards of directors will have equal representations from Nordic Entertainment and Telenor, with a rotating chairmanship. Current Canal Digital CEO Bjørn Ivar Moen will be CEO of the JV, Viasat Consumer CEO Jonas Gustafsson will be CFO and head of operations. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

“Combining Viasat Consumer and Canal Digital makes perfect sense,” Nordic Entertainment Group CEO Anders Jensen said in a press release. “We are creating a large-scale TV operator that will create sustainable value for customers and owners, and be able to compete with large scale regional and local competitors.”

After shining a light on the management structure for its new U.S. satellite TV service that quietly soft-launched earlier this year, Orby TV Friday released more details regarding its technical execution.

The company is teaming with Eutelsat Americas for capacity on the Eutelsat 117 West A satellite. Outlining the arrangement at the IBC Show in Amsterdam, the companies are referring to their deal as a “multi-year, multi-transponder” agreement.

Related: Start-up Orby TV Beams into U.S. Satellite TV Biz with Pre-Pay Play

Speaking to Light Reading, Orby TV CEO Michael Thornton said the company is launching the new pre-paid, $40-a-month service largely off existing third-party spectrum and delivery platforms. For set-top receivers, the company has contacted Kaon to deliver boxes that receive both satellite and over-the-air signals.

Burbank, California-based Orby TV is delivering a base package of around 44 basic cable channels, which includes the big WarnerMedia, Viacom, AMC Networks and Discovery Networks entertainment-themed channels, but little in the way of live sports outside of, say, TNT. Local broadcast stations are delivered via OTA, eliminating retrans considerations from the price point.

The U.S. satellite business has, of course, been in free-fall, with AT&T warning investors yesterday to expect even more DirecTV subscriber attribution in its upcoming Q3 report. This warning came two days after a hedge fund with $3.2 billion worth of skin in AT&T’s game demanded that the telecom sell DirecTV.

For its part, Orby TV believes that satellite remains a reliable, cost-effective way to deliver pay TV, particularly in rural areas with less access to broadband. And it believes it can undercut DirecTV and Dish Network in this market.

“This groundbreaking deal showcases the important role satellite continues to play in TV distribution, even in well-established markets. We look forward to supporting Orby TV as their innovative business and offerings continue to grow,” said Mike Antonovich, CEO of Eutelsat Americas, in Friday’s IBC announcement. 

AT&T’s top management has been asked by a hedge fund investor to sell its struggling DirecTV satellite TV operation.

Elliott Management put out a press release this morning that includes a letter from the firm, addressed to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and the board of directors. The missive outlines what Elliott views as a series of strategic mis-steps by the telecom, including the aborted attempt to buy T-Mobile back in 2011. These mis-steps have resulted in AT&T being undervalued, Eliott said. 

But more than anything, the hedge fund — which claims to control $3.2 billion worth of AT&T stock — is unhappy about the 2015 acquisition of DirecTV, which it said was acquired for $67 billion "at the absolute peak of the linear TV market.”

Since AT&T’s purchase of the satellite TV operator, the division has lost more than 20% of its customers. And as Elliott noted, starting with former CEO Michael White, DirecTV’s entire senior management team has turned over.

“Any assets that do not have a clear, strategic rationale for being part of AT&T should be considered for divestment: DirecTV, the Mexican wireless operations, pieces of the wireline footprint and other assets must all be evaluated as part of this review,” the Elliott letter read. “Several of these larger assets are no longer complementary with the Company’s future strategic direction, and AT&T must determine whether there is a financially and strategically attractive path to divesting them.”

Related: How a DirecTV and Dish Merger Could Create a Pay TV Powerhouse with 36M Subscribers

Elliott’s missive — as much a recrimination as it is a call to action — dwells heavily on what it views as a core AT&T problem: too much focus on M&A and not enough on execution.

To wit, the hedge fund took aim at the erstwhile DirecTV Now, AT&T’s attempt to transition the DirecTV brand name into the virtual MVPD age.

“AT&T’s OTT offering, DirecTV Now (renamed AT&T TV Now), has been poorly executed with delays, technical mishaps, weak customer service and usability issues,” Elliott wrote. “Despite describing DirecTV Now as a replacement for DirecTV, the natural-substitution narrative has not played out. While unsustainably low prices and aggressive promotion did initially help the product scale, the benefits turned out to be very short term in nature. As AT&T raised prices to normalized levels, results rapidly deteriorated. After just two years of existence amidst an otherwise-booming OTT market, DirecTV Now’s subscriber count is now declining.”

As for a divesture of DirecTV satellite, AT&T has removed the DirecTV brand name from all of its non-satellite TV products. Speculation has swirled in recent months that the telecom might combine the asset with the U.S. satellite TV business’s other struggling competitor, Dish Network.

Elliott believes AT&T can grow its share price by 65% by 2021 by following its blueprint.

Certainly, Elliott's position has the attention of AT&T, which hired Goldman Sachs Monday to defend itself from the so-called "activist" shareholder. 

It also has the broader attention of Wall Street. 

“While we don’t believe AT&T will publicly accredit any changes it makes to Elliot, we think the increased scrutiny is positive and is likely to lead to a better outcome than would have otherwise occurred and thus view today’s news as positive,”  investment research company Cowen said in a note to shareholders. 

The fight over renewing the satellite TV license for another half a decade has begun in earnest.

The National Association of Broadcasters is circulating a policy paper on Capitol Hill advocating for not renewing the STELAR law (Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act) when it expires at the end of 2019.

STELAR, which was last renewed 2014, reauthorizes the satellite compulsory distant signal license for five years. But last time around it was also a vehicle for some cable-friendly changes to retrans, including renewing the FCC's enforcement of good faith retrans negotiations and extending the commission's prohibition on coordinated retrans negotiations among noncommonly owned TV stations in a market from the top four to all stations.

NAB says it expects MVPDs to push for renewal, but contends there is no justification for compelling the out-or-market carriage to broadcast affiliate-unserved homes given that that number is dropping and in all 210 markets DISH and DirecTV are providing local-into-local TV station carriage.

As for the half-million homes that are still getting imported TV signals thanks to STELAR, NAB says they can be "better served through private business negotiations between satellite companies and local broadcasters."

NAB says the provisions set to expire--and which it argues should expire--are the "discounted" compulsory license, the retrans exemption for the imported out-of-market signals, and the good faith negotiation requirement. 

"There is no policy justification or technological reason for STELAR to be reauthorized. The time has come to stop subsidizing billion-dollar satellite TV companies and to instead provide viewers with the local news, weather and emergency information they want and need. Congress should let STELAR expire," NAB said.

“If Congress fails to re-authorize STELAR, hundreds of thousands of consumers, mostly in rural areas, would lose their broadcast channels from satellite," said Trent Duffy, spokesperson for the cable and satellite-backed American Television Alliance. "Congress should not only re-authorize STELAR so rural America can continue receiving all their broadcast channels, but also modernize the retransmission consent rules, which currently favor broadcasters at the expense of consumers and competition.”

Sling TV subscriber additions weren’t enough to overcome broader satellite TV losses at Dish Network in Q1.

Dish said net pay TV subs declined about 94,000 in Q1, narrowed from a year-ago decline of 143,000.

In Q1, net Dish satellite TV subs dropped by 185,000 offset in part by adds of 91,000 Sling TV subscribers.

Dish closed Q1 with 10.84 million satellite TV subscribers and 2.3 million Sling TV subs. Dish ended the period with combined pay TV sub base of 13.14 million, down from 13.52 million in the year-ago quarter.

Dish said satellite TV’s average monthly subscriber churn rate was 1.47%, improved from 1.92% in Q1 2017. Overall pay TV ARPU in Q1 was $84.50, down from $86.55, reflecting an increase of subs on the lower-margin Sling TV service.

RELATED: Sling TV Rolls Cloud DVR to More Devices

On the financial end, Q1 revenues were $3.46 billion, down from $3.68 billion in the year-ago quarter. Q1 net income was $368 million, versus $376 million in Q1 2017.

Dish is scheduled to discuss Q1 results in more detail today at noon ET. 

Influential media analyst Craig Moffett, principal and senior analyst at MoffettNathanson raised his rating on Dish Network to “neutral” from “sell,” adding in a note to clients that the satellite giant’s stock price may be closer than ever to its true value.

Dish stock has been pummeled over the past year – Moffett wrote that it has underperformed the S&P 500 by 50 percentage points over the past 12 months and has registered new 52-week lows almost daily over the past several weeks. But now, with the stock hovering in the mid-to-low $40 per share range since February, Dish may be the closest it’s been in years to its true value.

“The case for an upgrade (to Neutral, that is, not to Buy) is relatively simple,” Moffett wrote. “Dish was badly overvalued. It isn’t anymore.”  

Dish shares were up slightly on March 22 – they were priced at $38.11 each, up 34 cents or 1% in early trading.

Moffett said at its current price range – he has maintained his $37 per share 12-month target on the stock – Dish’s wireless spectrum (its biggest valuation source) is valued at about $1 per MHz POP, which is what Moffett believes it would attract in a sale. Dish has accumulated a wide swath of spectrum over the past few years, and speculation has been that other wireless companies, hungry for more bandwidth, would either by Dish’s wireless licenses or the company itself. When it became apparent in the past year that that was unlikely to happen, Dish stock started to falter. Investors became increasingly skittish when chairman Charlie Ergen made moves to build out that spectrum – it needs to reach 70% of its licensed areas by the end of 2020. 

In his report, Moffett wrote that the spectrum buildout has its own questions – will Dish be able to complete it in time to meet federal deadlines, will it cost more or less than the $1 billion Dish has estimated and will it have to take on a JV partner to complete it? Add in the declining satellite TV business and the picture looks increasingly grim.

Satellite TV has been under pressure for years – DirecTV, purchased by AT&T in 2015 reported its first full year of net subscriber losses in 2017. And chances are those losses would have been sooner if AT&T hadn’t been encouraging U-verse TV users to switch to satellite.

Related: Small Dish, Deep Decline

To his credit, Ergen has been more candid than most CEOs about the decline of the satellite business – he has been saying it is maturing for years – and has tried to address shifting viewing habits with smaller video packages – like Dish's Flex Pack – and its own over-the-top service Sling TV. Sling TV, which was launched in 2015, has about 2.2 million subscribers and is currently the largest subscription OTT service in the U.S. (DirecTV Now is a close second with about 1.5 million customers).

And Ergen is no stranger to gloom and doom predictions – he has weathered them before and managed to dazzle investors with new products or lines of business (RE: The Hopper, Sling TV, wireless spectrum). There is no reason to think he can’t pull a rabbit out of his hat again. But, he'd better hurry.

Pay TV subscriber rolls fell by 3.7% in 2017 according to industry researcher Kagan, fueled by larger than expected losses at satellite TV providers and accelerated declines at cable operators.

Total pay TV subscribers fell to 94 million in 2017. Including virtual MVPDs like Sling TV and DirecTV Now boosts the total count to 97.3 million, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Intelligence.  Combined Kagan estimated that cable, satellite and telco subscriptions were down by 7.4 million customers from their peak in 2012.

Cable operators lost 986,411 video subscribers in 2017, more than twice their 2016 drop. That, according to  Kagan, broke the sector’s three-year streak of decelerating video subscriber losses.

Telcos slowed their net subscriber losses for a third consecutive quarter. The sector shed 903,262 subscribers overall in 2017 to end the year at 10.6 million.

The satellite TV sector was down nearly 1.7 million subscribers in 2017, its biggest annual loss on record, as DirecTV joined Dish Network in posting traditional subscriber declines.

Dish Network disclosed Sling TV customers for the first time Wednesday, with the over-the-top pioneer ending 2017 with 2.2 million customers.

It was the first time since the 2015 launch of the service that Dish has disclosed its customer count. At the same time Dish said its satellite TV service ended the year with 11.03 million customers.

Other OTT services have started to reveal subscriber numbers in recent weeks. HBO said its standalone HBO Now and other OTT services have about 5 million customers, while CBS said that its CBS All Access and Showtime over-the-top offerings have a combined 5 million customers and are on track to reach 8 million by 2020.

The Sling TV numbers come as Dish reported a less than stellar fourth quarter, with revenue down 7.2% to $3.48 billion from $3.75 billion in the previous year. Net income was up sharply to $1.39 billion, from $355 million in the prior year, entirely due to a $1.2 billion tax break resulting from recent tax reform measures. 

Overall, net pay-TV subscribers increased by about 39,000 in the fourth quarter, which includes 75,000 reactivations in Puerto Rico and the U.S.Virgin Islands following the extraordinary devastation of Hurricane Maria. The gain is compared to net additions of 28,000 in the year-ago quarter.

For the year, revenue was down 5.4% to $14.39 billion, compared to $15.21 billion in 2016. Net income rose to $2.1 billion, versus $1.5 billion in 2016, and mostly due to tax reform.

Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak raised his rating on Dish Network to "buy" Monday, adding that the satellite TV company could be more attractive in the wake of the failed Sprint-T-Mobile merger.

Sprint and T-Mobile officially called it quits Saturday, saying after months of talks about a possible merger that no deal could be reached.  Sprint on Sunday announced an MVNO Agreement with Altice USA, unrelated to the merger action. 

In a note to clients Monday, Wlodarczak wrote that Sprint's loss could be Dish's gain, either through a spectrum sale to another carrier like T-Mobile or Verizon, or an outright sale of the company. Dish has wireless spectrum licenses that are valued at about $10 billion, and minus a Sprint/T-Mobile merger those assets could be rising in value.

Dish stock already was on the rise in early trading Monday, up 6.7% ($3.23 per share) to $51.30 each.

"In our opinion, post the T-Mobile-Sprint deal failure there is a reasonable chance that T-Mobile could make a play for Dish or Dish spectrum as it would immediately vault the most disruptive U.S. wireless player into the leading U.S. spectrum position (w/ substantially more spectrum than underpins Verizon’s “best in class” network)," Wlodarczak wrote. "This possible move could force Verizon to counter-bid for Dish spectrum (or possibly the entire company) as Dish spectrum is ideally suited for Verizon and to keep it out of T-Mobile’s hands."

The analyst pointed to Verizon's bidding war with AT&T over Straight Path earlier this year, which Verizon ultimately won.

"In our view, we don’t see what T-Mobile management has to lose in engaging in talks with Dish about a possible deal (either they get high quality spectrum or force Verizon to overpay)," Wlodarczak wrote. " In addition, AT&T, post their Time Warner deal, could (and frankly should) be interested in purchasing Dish’s core DBS business taking advantage of a potentially more laissez faire regulatory climate/emergence of V-MVPD’s, to significantly bolster their DirecTV business (and help to justify the original questionable DirecTV deal) by creating a SatTV monopoly in ~10-15M US households, increased programming scale and massive synergies at a likely very attractive price."

Dish Network reported a loss of 116,000 net new video customers in the third quarter, its sixth consecutive period of losses, as gains at its over-the-top Sling TV services were again not enough to stop the traditional pay TV bleeding.

Revenue for the quarter was flat at $3.75 billion, compared to $3.73 billion in the same period last year.

Dish has lost net subscribers in the past six quarters – its last period of growth was 35,000 additions in the first quarter of 2015 – and some analysts noted that the losses to the satellite business are likely heavier given that Dish combines subscribers for both Sling TV and satellite TV.

In a research note, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett estimated that Dish’s satellite business shed about 320,000 net subscribers, about even with the second quarter. On the bright side, Moffett estimated that Sling TV added 204,000 subscribers in the period, up from the estimated 15,000 additions a year ago. Overall, Moffett wrote the satellite TV business has shed 949,000 subscribers over the past year, or about 8.1% of its legacy subscriber base.    

During the VCR’s heyday, the overused joke was that grandma just could never figure out how to get that blinking “12:00” to turn off. Today, more devices than ever are attached to the TV, including ones aimed specifically at getting people age 65 and older to keep in touch with family and friends while also watching their favorite TV shows.

One such device is becoming available on Amazon as of Sept. 19 – the $149 SentabTV, a device that promotes features including photo sharing, video chats and phone calling and an emphasis on making social media easier for a demographic that usually isn’t inclined to use Facebook and the like.

According to U.S. Census data, by 2040 there will be 82.3 million Americans 65 and older, and it’s a digital market that’s been largely ignored, according to Gordon Schenk, California-based senior VP of business development at Sentab, a European firm.

“The demographic watches live linear programming 78% of the time, and our solution…allows the individual to watch their existing [pay TV], with the social features overlaid on top of that, and also be connected to family, friends and caregivers,” Schenk told Next TV. “One of the neat features of our digital media player, compared to the Rokus and Apple TVs out there, is we have a patented feature set where you don’t have to switch any inputs. Once the box is installed…you never have to switch inputs again, and watch TV as you normally would.”

Existing live, linear cable, satellite and telco services can be connected via HDMI cables to the SentabTV, and a $10 monthly subscription adds services including making audio and video calls directly from the TV; photo and video sharing; a newsfeed; games that specifically target cognitive retention; and an online community and marketplace section.

“We have a perceived gap in social media that relates to the senior community,” Schenk said. “If you look at the numbers for Facebook, 65 or older is almost in the single digits. Being able to get a creative way for them to be social is our focus.”

Sentab said some senior residency groups in the U.S. are testing the set-top and services. Future add-ons could include health and fitness tracking via Bluetooth, Schenk said.

Losses in the telco TV sector drove pay TV subscriber losses to record heights in the second quarter, as 812,000 customers dropped their monthly subscriptions, according to research firm SNL Kagan.

According to Kagan, the losses were higher than the previous record – last year’s Q2 loss of about 625,000 pay TV customers. Cable subscriber losses continued to decline: Kagan estimated about 298,000 cable subscribers cut service in the period, a 13.6% improvement and the fifth consecutive year of diminishing losses for the period ended June 30. Satellite TV service providers shed about 26,000 customers in the quarter, while telco losses mounted. Kagan said the heaviest losses were at AT&T, which has been migrating its U-verse customers to its DirecTV satellite platform. Kagan estimated that U-verse customers are down by nearly 1 million since mid-2015.

RELATED: Nielsen says TV universe rose by 2 million homes.

Factoring in the estimated 764,000 customers for Dish Network’s Sling TV service, which Kagan argues is a multichannel video programming distributor, the trailing 12-month multichannel decline is reduced to 853,000.

A quarter of U.S. TV households have neither a cable nor satellite subscription, with younger people even more likely than the general population to be over-the-air-only viewers, market research firm GfK said.

That comes from GfK's 2016 Ownership and Trend Report, which shows that 17% of U.S. TV households rely on broadcast service, up from 15% in 2015, while another 6% rely on Internet video services including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu or YouTube and do not watch either broadcast or traditional pay TV, up from 4% in 2015.

Interestingly, the younger demo (18-34) is most likely to opt for broadcast versus pay TV, with 22% saying they are using over-the-air reception versus an MVPD and 13% saying they were using their TV sets to view Internet video.

“The fact that a statistically significant increase in broadcast-only reception occurred over just one year may be further proof that the cord-cutting/cord-never phenomenon is accelerating,” sayid David Tice, SVP in GfK’s Media & Entertainment practice. “If you include homes that have no TVs at all – about 3% of all households – then less than three quarters (73%) of U.S. homes continue to have pay TV service, with the attendant implications for all stakeholders – not just the pay TV services themselves, but also networks, content providers and advertisers.”

The study, a part of GfK’s The Home Technology Monitor reports, was conducted among 3,009 households.

Cable operators improved their ratings significantly in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, with some providers improving their overall scores by 15% or more, but still couldn’t pass stronger showings from telco and satellite TV providers.

Cable stopped its two-year decline in ACSI pay TV ratings, rising 3.25% as a whole, but still finishing last in ACSI’s annual customer satisfaction ratings, a random sample of 12,710 consumers, with scores ranging from 54 to 66 out of 100. Telco TV finished first and satellite TV service providers placed second.

Among cable operators, the biggest gainers were Time Warner Cable, which rose 15.7% from a 51 in 2015 to a 59 in 2016 and Comcast, which increased its ACSI score 14.8% from 54 in 2015 to 66 this year. The highest rated cable companies were Bright House Networks and Cablevision Systems, each with a score of 66. Bright House was purchased by Charter Communications (which scored a 60) in May and Altice N.V. is expected to close its purchase of Cablevision later this month.

“It’s not too hard for cable companies to improve when their starting point is the cellar,” said ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg in a statement.

Acquisitions could play a role in next year’s ratings as companies that are involved in mergers typically post lower scores once their deals are done. Charter closed on its $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable on May 18, the same day it closed the Bright House deal.

Again, telcos Verizon and AT&T U-Verse had the best scores in the subscription TV segment – 70 and 69, respectively.  DirecTV received a 68 rating (the same as last year) and Dish Network had a 67, even with 2015.

The tables were turned on the Internet Service Provider front, with cable operators performing best. Verizon secured the top spot again with a 73 rating (the highest ever for the segment), with Cablevision Systems up 13% to a score of 69, Bright House Networks up 7% to 67 and Time Warner Cable up 14% to 66. Charter increased its score 11% to 63 in the period.

“High-speed Internet access is a must-have in the digital age, making ISPs and wireless companies critical providers for the workplace as well as the home,” said ACSI founder and chairman Claes Fornell in a statement. “With relatively few options, consumers have limited means for punishing companies for poor service.”

Comcast is taking another swing at its satellite TV competition with a fresh set of ads that mock its spaced-based rivals, including a few jabs directed squarely at DirecTV.

In an attempt to characterize satellite TV technology as antiquated and pushing the message, “Don’t fall for DirecTV,” Comcast’s new ads are kickin’ it old school and perhaps conjuring up images of spectacular mullets, glam bands, parachute pants and big sales at Chess King by applying some creative license to some catchy (kitschy?) hits from the ‘80s.

In addition to taking some playful jabs at its satellite TV competition, the ads, spotted this week by The Donohue Report, also play up some of the features and capabilities of X1, Comcast’s next-gen video platform, including its voice remote, large VOD library, as well as video downloading to mobile devices.

The timing of the ads are interesting in that AT&T is preparing to launch a set of  DirecTV-branded video services that are delivered over-the-top via broadband connections rather than through its satellite TV infrastructure. Dish Network, meanwhile, launched its OTT-TV service, Sling TV, last February.

The new ads are running in all Comcast divisions and were produced by Goodby Silverstein, according to Comcast.

And, now, the ads:

“We Built This Thingy…on Tech That’s Old” to Starship’s “We Built This City":

“Everybody is Bored Tonight” to Wang Chung’s “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”:

“You’re Not Gonna Watch It” to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (complete with a Dee Snider cameo):

Comcast’s new campaign follows a recent one from Charter Communications (starring Saturday Night Live alum Kevin Nealon as Captain Telstar) that also used playful anecdotes to characterize satellite TV as a platform that’s getting a bit long in the tooth.

DirecTV, meanwhile, has also been joining the advertising fun with a campaign that mocked the cable industry over its recent M&A activity with the troubled paring of two fictitious MSO giants -- Cable Corp. Inc. and CableWorld.

Beginning in January, AT&T will move its DirecTV satellite television service under its own brand, keeping the DirecTV name for the product and adding the telecom giant's iconic globe logo. In a memo to employees on Dec. 2, AT&T said it would also remove the "Now part of the AT&T Family," tag line from DirecTV marketing.

“The iconic AT&T brand – one of the world’s most valuable and admired – is our brand,” AT&T said in an internal company memo.

AT&T purchased DirecTV in a deal valued at $48.5 billion in July. Combined with its U-Verse telco TV service, AT&T has about 26 million pay TV subscribers, making it the largest pay television service provider in the country.

In the internal company memo, AT&T said that it plans to transition all of its TV product names to AT&T Entertainment once it establishes its “next generation TV platform.” The company did not elaborate.

At its August Analyst Day, AT&T said it is developing a new home media gateway that will allow third-party broadband connections, LTE connections and AT&T broadband connections, according to DSL Reports. At the same meeting, AT&T Entertainment & Internet Services chief John Stankey said the goal is to move to a single architecture for all TV and broadband users that will involve "very thin hardware profiles," (probably a cloud DVR) and that its set-top, router and gateway hardware "will become a consolidated, single platform over the next 24-36 months."

The memo added that the company is changing the name of its  overall TV organization from AT&T Entertainment & Internet Services to AT&T Entertainment Group.

AT&T and DirecTV officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Incorporating the AT&T logo with the DirecTV service makes sense, especially as the company has made major efforts to bundle the TV offering with its wireless service. 

Charter Communications has launched a new humorous Star Trek-themed Spectrum ad campaign featuring actor, comedian and  Saturday Night Live alum Kevin Nealon that pokes fun at satellite TV rivals, taking specific aim at rain fade and promotional pricing.

And, yes, the ads even target customer service issues, an area that's never been a strong suit for the cable industry.

Nealon is Captain Telstar, commanding the orbiting (and aging) Satellite TV Headquarters vessel that launched in 1994. The ads advance the viewer to present day to see how the orbiter is dealing with current challenges, suggesting that the ship's technology is getting a bit, shall we say, long in the tooth. 

On how to deal with rain fade, Telstar recommends: “Did you try turning it off and turning it back on again?”

Each ad, clearly targeted at Dish Network and DirecTV (now part of AT&T), concludes with the tagline: “It’s time to move on from satellite.”

Charter developed the “Satellite TV Spaceship” campaign, which also features gifs and memes, with Pereira & O’Dell New York. The ads were directed by Fred Savage.

You can view the first trio of ads below or by going here:

·         

Perhaps in response to DirecTV’s comment that broadcast station groups “ransom” their content during retransmission consent battles, Raycom Media returned the favor, pointing out that the nation’s largest satellite TV service provider is hardly in a positon to cry poverty.

Raycom Media and DirecTV reached an agreement in principle on Sept. 7 regarding the broadcaster’s 43 stations in 37 markets mostly in the south. The deal was made after Raycom pulled its signals for the stations on Sept. 1.  In announcing the deal DirecTV thanked its customers for their patience, but added that “Raycom’s intentional recent blackouts of Dish, Cox and now DirecTV customers creates an even greater sense of urgency for lawmakers to  review and overhaul tis anti-consumer retransmission consent process once and for all.”

Raycom apparently took exception to that characterization and in a “fact sheet” sent via the National Association of Broadcasters Monday, pointed out the following:

• “DirecTV earned $2.3 Billion dollars in 2013, and their profits were up 14%, yet they profess to be ‘fighting to hold costs down for their subscribers.’
• DirecTV has removed stations from its lineup at least 12 times in the last 3 years as a negotiating and political tactic, including another broadcaster, just last week.
• Since our last agreement with DirecTV, Raycom Media has successfully negotiated more than 200 agreements without disruption to our viewers. That's a 99% success rate.
• In the history of our company only 3 providers have removed our stations from their system-DirecTV being one of them.
• Raycom Media looks forward to working with DirecTV to turn our agreement in principle into a final, fully-binding document. We fully support the terms both parties agreed to Sunday and hope DirecTV will too.”

Global satellite television revenue is expected to reach $99.9 billion by 2020, a nearly 14% increase from last year’s $87.8 billion in sales, according to a new report by Digital TV Research.

The Global Satellite TV Forecasts estimates that Asia Pacific and Latin America will show the strongest growth, while western Europe declines as completion for other platforms increases.

The Digital TV Research report looks at 138 countries and estimates that total satellite homes will rise from 192 million at the end of 2013 to 271 million by 2020. Of those 78.5 million additional homes, 27.7 million will come from India,  5.8 million from Brazil and 5.4 million from Indonesia, the report estimates. The pay TV subscriber total will more than double in 47 countries, while 13 countries will experience declines between 2013 and 2020.

Digital TV Research predicts satellite TV revenues will overtake cable TV revenues in 2014, accounting for 46.0% of total pay TV revenues and rising to 47.8% by 2020.  The US will remain the satellite TV market leader by revenues generated, while India will add the most satellite TV revenues ($3.2 billion; tripling its total) between 2013 and 2020. Next is Brazil with an additional $1.6 billion, followed by the US with an additional $1.5 billion. The report predicts that satellite revenue will more than double in 44 countries in the next six years.

Others will see declines as competition continues to heat up.  
“Satellite TV revenues will decline for 19 countries between 2013 and 2020,” said report author Simon Murray in a statement. “Much of this is due to greater competition forcing satellite TV platforms to offer cheaper packages which will lead to lower ARPUs. Furthermore, low-cost satellite TV packages are making a significant impact in several countries.”

Including free-to-air and pay satellite TV households, the report estimates that 439 million homes will directly receive TV signals via satellite dishes by 2020, up by almost 100 million from 2013. More than 25% of global TV households will have a satellite TV dish by 2020, up from 18.3% in 2010 and 22.3% in 2013, according to Digital TV Research.