AT&T Switches To DirecTV
Deal Leaves Dish Network Without Major Reseller Partner
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 9/26/2008 3:35:00 PM
AT&T will market and sell a co-branded version of DirecTV's satellite TV service after Jan. 31, 2009 -- a deal that will leave Dish Network without a major reseller partner.
Financial details of the non-equity agreement, announced late Friday, were not disclosed.
DirecTV has similar agreements with Verizon Communications, which markets the direct-broadcast satellite service in areas where it doesn't offer FiOS TV, as well as Qwest Communications International.
Dish disclosed this week that it extended its deal with AT&T through Jan. 31, 2009, an agreement that the telco noted it "will fully honor." Customers who have ordered Dish service through AT&T will continue to receive the same service.
The end of AT&T's partnership with Dish looms as the DBS operator posted its first-ever subscriber loss, of 25,000 customers, for the second quarter. Last fall, AT&T was rumored to be considering buying Dish.
Earlier this year, AT&T said it would offer Dish service in all territories to customers where its U-verse TV service is not available, including the nine states where BellSouth had resold DirecTV, as it considered whether it would offer Dish or DirecTV service in 2009 and beyond.
AT&T will market DirecTV service to households in areas where it doesn't provide U-verse TV. As of June 30, the company had 549,000 U-verse TV customers and the telco has said it expects to top 1 million subscribers by year’s end. The service is available to more than 11 million living units in 53 markets.
The telco plans to offer service bundles with DirecTV's video service, promising discounts for customers that also subscriber to AT&T wireless, home phone and broadband services.
AT&T vice president of video and entertainment Jeff Weber said in a statement that the DirecTV service "complements our premier AT&T U-verse TV service and gives customers another great choice for state-of-the-art, 100% digital programming."
Separately, Liberty Media chairman John Malone -- speaking at the company's investor day meeting earlier on Friday -- tried to dispel speculation that his DirecTV Group would merge with Dish, but added that the two satellite giants could share resources in the future.
Malone said that although in a year or more “anything crazy can happen,” for the time being “I don’t think it is worth either company’s energy or effort to approach the regulatory agencies with that proposal.”
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