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from the nuke-it-from-orbit-it's-the-only-way-to-be-sure dept.
AT&T Explores Parting Ways With DirecTV:
Telecom giant considers fate of DirecTV satellite unit as cord-cutting saps subscriber base
AT&T Inc. is exploring parting with its DirecTV unit, people familiar with the matter said, a sharp reversal from Chief Executive Randall Stephenson's strategy to make the $49 billion bet on the satellite provider a key piece of the phone giant's future.
The telecom giant has considered various options, including a spinoff of DirecTV into a separate public company and a combination of DirecTV's assets with Dish Network Corp., its satellite-TV rival, the people said.
AT&T may ultimately decide to keep DirecTV in the fold. Despite the satellite service's struggles, as consumers drop their TV connections, it still contributes a sizable volume of cash flow and customer accounts to its parent.
AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 for $49 billion. The company's shrinking satellite business is under a microscope after activist investor Elliott Management Corp. disclosed a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T last week and released a report pushing for strategic changes. Elliott has told investors that AT&T should unload DirecTV, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported.
Related: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/09/18/1656205
Like Blockbuster, DirecTV, Dish, etc. are extremely slow to catch onto the whole Netflix/Amazon Prime Ad-Free, pick-what-I-want-to-watch model.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday September 22 2019, @05:14AM (1 child)
Good point. I thought I had seen some on demand programming the last time I looked at a DirecTv setup. So perhaps it was it more on request than on demand? It would cache an existing stream and wait till it received everything before allowing it to play. That would allow you to collapse, or multiplex the programming. Then you would be limited to the number of channels multiplied by 24 hours. You would have to wait for your show to be allocated a slot along with all of the other subscribers. Popular and current content would receive more bandwidth obviously.
That's still not satisfying consumer demand, nor does it compete with land based services. My idea is a Hail Mary at best, and only works with people that have satellite as their only choice.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday September 22 2019, @12:39PM
Yes, I can see it working in remote areas where satellite is the only choice. And even if there's a 24-hour delay, or longer, I can see it working better than the nearly bankrupt DVD rental place 50 miles away. Though bandwidth would still likely restrict it to the more popular offerings.
But for those popular offerings it would likely work better than downloading (encrypted) movies from Netflix before viewing them, because it would be organised for those shared downloads.
What kind of download protocol would be suitable here?