Posted on 07/20/2006 2:28:12 PM PDT by HAL9000
Shares of America’s #2 satellite television provider, EchoStar Communications, have hit 17-month highs in recent days amid speculation that leading rival, DirecTV Group Inc., could try to purchase the company.Such a merger would likely face regulatory and antitrust hurdles, but many analysts believe that these problems would be relatively easy to overcome. After all, the combined entity could be a strong competitor in the triple play communications industry, now increasingly polarized between cable and telecom carriers.
The decision to merge with DirecTV would rest solely with Charlie Ergen, EchoStar’s Chairman, CEO, and co-founder, who currently controls more than 90% of the company’s voting shares.
“Charlie has three choices. He can be acquired by DirecTV (or) AT&T or do a leveraged buyout and take the company private,” commented Kaufman Bros. analyst, Todd Mitchell, in a recent interview. “If he takes the company private, he still hasn’t done anything about his competitive position.”
In recent years, EchoStar has been on a slow but steady decline, unable to attract enough new customers to maintain financial sustainability. It is becoming increasingly clear to analysts that EchoStar will have a hard time staying both independent and profitable in this highly competitive and volatile industry.
DirecTV rocks.
It rocks - except for live news after midnight.
Dishnetwork's HDTV lineup is significantly superior to that of DirctTV. DirectTV has better sports programming, although it also costs more. Dishnetwork is generally cheaper.
I'm mostly not awake by then anyway.
I switched to it solely for NFL. The on-screen guide sucks compared to DISH, but I'll live with it.
Wasn't this all but a done deal a couple years ago? What's different now?
BTW, I've had Primestar, DirecTV and Dish. Dish is better than Direct, IMHO.
yeah my parents have the old old old DirecTV models which has the old menus and whatnot.
Much better than what we have now.
My FIL has DISH and when I'm trying to find channels on it, I'm completely lost :)
Yes it does but DISH is currently running circles around it in HDTV content. Twice as many HDTV channels on DISH compared to DIRECTV. But I love my DIRECTV HDTV-TIVO.
yep.
I have every episode from the past South Park Season currently on my TIVO.
I'll probably get rid of one or two, but I love having that.
I have the 2005 OSU-Michigan game TIVO'd too.
>>DirecTV rocks.<<
DirecTV is the only place in the world to get genuine Tivos that record two things at once and don't need a seperate cable box. I couldn't ever go back.
Have had DirectTV for years and prefer it to cable in terms of clarity, choices, view options. On all of them, however, the number of paid programming 'shows' have sky rocketed. A broken record sound follows: why pay $50 plus a month for ads?
LOL
yes it is.
I just rewired my entire house so the dish didn't look like a gypsy camp anymore.
The guy who wired it did it quick, probably too quickly.
I agree DISH HD channels are better, but mine don't come in half the time!
Oh I hope not, I've have both Direct TV and Dish (it's a long story) and Dish is head and shoulders above Direct TV. I'll be very sad if Charlie sells. Don't do it Charlie!
HAL9000... Any tips for a person thinking about switching from cable to Dish? Time Warner is still increasing their rates so I'm looking into alternatives and Dish seems to be good.
I switched to it solely for NFL
Dish has the NFL channel now. I hope they offer a cheaper price if they merge.
If this happens then you will see prices shoot up even higher. So much for competition.
I also installed a pole in the ground for the DirecTV dish. When a winter storm hits and the dish ices over, I can get it de-iced with a pitcher of warm water. That works a lot better than putting the dish on the roof.
I thought Echostar (DiSH) was all set to buy DirecTV a few years ago, but the deal fell through because it didn't clear those "regulatory and antitrust hurdles".
Why should this deal be any different? BTW, I've been a satisfied DiSH customer form many years. If Charlie sells, and quality declines, and rates go up, I'll switch to cable, and get a 1-year special for switching back.
The problem we have is that DirecTV hasn't re-upped with the TiVo people, and the new MPEG4 HD PVRs that are coming from DirecTV won't be TiVos.
I'll probably be able to figure out a new interface, but I'm not sure the wife will.
The dish is right outside my bedroom window, so it kinda works the same for me :)
Besides, most of the storms through here are all snow, because they generally throw a bunch of ice into columbus.
They had installed a grounding block on the side of my house and it seriously looked horrible. What we did is we took the coax straight down into the ground (we installed a 2 foot L-section of PVC in the ground and ran it behind the wall in my rec room into the basement, where we then wired everything from the ground up.
Works great.
That, and in my area Direct TV subscriptions are controlled by the local telephone co-op. Apparently, they have a master agreement with Direct TV. I had one of the first Direct TV dishes way back when, but after numerous billing issues, like being charged for multiple movie rentals when I was out of the country for 3 months, I switched to Dish Network. Never had a problem with billing since.
Love Dish with DVR. Recorded whole season of 24. Cable companies can bl0w me.
>>The problem we have is that DirecTV hasn't re-upped with the TiVo people, and the new MPEG4 HD PVRs that are coming from DirecTV won't be TiVos.
I'll probably be able to figure out a new interface, but I'm not sure the wife will.<<
A DirecTV rep last week told me they have a large stock of the Tivo powered units if you ask for real Tivo instead.
Whatever happened to anti-trust laws? Isn't this sort of thing exactly why they were created in the first place?
Or is there another satellite broadcast service that I haven't heard about?
NFL Channel is ok, but for the first time in my life I'm going to see the Patriots entire schedule. That was worth the switch to me.
If you have ice storms, consider installing a short pole for mounting your dish on the ground instead of the roof, as I mentioned in the previous post. If the installer puts your dish on the roof, you may lose reception if your dish gets covered in sleet and ice. The ground-level dish can be easily de-iced with a pitcher of warm water.
If you do install your own pole, you may need to do some research to make sure it is installed where satellite reception will be available. You may have to aim through a bunch of trees like I did, which could be tricky. I used a good compass to find a location with the best angles. Check the Dish Network/DirecTV web sites to get the azimuth/elevation angles for your location. Then you need a bag of Quik-rete and a fence post level to set it straight. Also, try to make sure that the installer grounds the dish grounded properly. Most installers don't bother with that.
If your satellite provider doesn't carry your local channels, you will need a separate antenna for local broadcast stations. There is a special type of splitter called a "Diplexer" (available at Lowes) that can combine your satellite cable and your antenna cable into a single cable.
If you live in a storm-prone area, be sure to install antenna lighting arrestors and surge protectors.
I don't know what is different, regulatory-wise, but the buy-out is reversed this time. I've had Echostar and DirecTV; happy with DirecTV right now.
IIRC, there was a bidding war for buying DirecTV from Hughes, and Murdoch beat Ergin.
Thanks. I'm more curious about the reception quality. I'm in South Texas, so ixnay on the sleet and ice ;)
What rocks about it? The crappy compression artifacted picture?
DISH has their own DVR that can record 2 things at once, and can run 2 TVs off of the same box. I've tried TiVo and I like DISH's DVR better. I hope Charlie doesn't give in; I cannot stand the thought of having to switch to Tivo!
I agree. After two months, I can't imagine why anyone would stay with cable which, around here (Comcast), is much more expensive.
Works just fine for me.
well it is, until your wife orders about 20 movies :)...
GRRRRRRRRRR :)
>>DISH has their own DVR that can record 2 things at once, and can run 2 TVs off of the same box. I've tried TiVo and I like DISH's DVR better. I hope Charlie doesn't give in; I cannot stand the thought of having to switch to Tivo!<<
I respect your right to prefer Dish but the way Tivo find programs I like based on what I watch and how I rate things and the way it finds a scheduled program even if it moves to another night or a different channel and a dozen other little patented things make me prefer the Tivo.
I always wondered why nobody ever developed a dish heater. Mine is on the roof, but I can reach it from an upper deck off my master bathroom. I have had it ice up many times here on the mountain in SE Tennessee, but I can deice it using a hair dryer duct taped onto a broomstick.....necessity is the mother of invention, after all.....
I really want to dump the ever-evil Comcast. The picture quality STINKS on analog - when I buy 320x240 "Battlestar Galactica" episodes on iTunes, it is equal in picture quality to Comcast!
They scramble DiscoveryHD and ESPN-HD, even though I pay through the nose for the analog versions. Even if I were to pay for them, I can't watch them without a set-top box, and hence they won't be viewable on my Elgato EyeTV HDTV system I have on my Mac.
The only think keeping my holding on to Comcast is the very-high speed internet connection. While Comcast offers cable internet without TV service, I've heard reports that the "TV channel blocking" filters they place on the line signifigantly impact internet speed.
Well, there's always more than one way to skin a cat, but this is the first thing that comes to mind: The conductive wires or water plumbing typically associated with heaters would interfere with with the EM signal-collecting poperties of the dish.
It sure does fire up the engineering imagination to how this could be done, though! Good idea.
I just yanked DISH out of my house and went back to cable. They finally added enough HDTV channels to make it worthwhile, but when I scheduled the installation of the necessary upgrade, they screwed up the scheduling. When informed of their screwup, instead of going out of their way to remedy it, they basically just said "oops" and put me back at the end of the line to wait another 11 days before getting the service.
After several wasted hours on the phone (mostly on hold, including getting disconnected a time or two) over the course of about four days, I was eventually told that the installer would be out to hook it up the next day. Not only did that not happen, but when I called again, there were no notes on my computer file indicating that anything had been said to me, let alone the lie I'd been told apparently just to get me off the phone. So that was the end of DISH network for me.
When my dish was mounted way up on the side of the house, I tried all sorts of contraptions to get it de-iced too. It took forever to get it cleared off. Finally, I had enough of that and installed the pole on the ground.
Well, if they succeed, I'm betting Charlie Ergen will be ticked. Dish tried to buy DirecTV a few years back, and the feds nixed it. So I guess it's ok for DirecTV, but not Dish?
That should cease to be a problem when they eventually go full digital. When that is, is beyond me, but with a full digital signal they will be programming your receivers/setop boxes/digital TV's with what you can receive, so actual filters won't be needed.
Bandwisth should go up as well since there won't be any analog signals to eat it up.
Scratching my head. That's exactly how I remember it. They ruled Echostar couldn't buy DirecTV, but now the reverse is OK? Huh?
You nailed it. We have Dish and my in-laws have DirectTV. While our program packages are pretty similar, I absolutely hate the on-screen guide that they have. Dish Network's guide is, in my opinion (check my tagline!), vastly superior.
One thing I always wondered about DirectTV, Why are Fox News,MSNBC and all other news channels in the 360s and CNN\Headline News at 202 and 204?
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