DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow indicated his company wasn’t willing to change the deal to satisfy Dish bondholders. “We have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms were necessary to protect DirecTV’s balance sheet and our operational flexibility,” Morrow said.
AT&T still selling DirecTV stake
AT&T owns 70 percent of DirecTV but plans to sell its stake to private equity firm TPG, which owns the other 30 percent. DirecTV said this separate deal is still moving forward.
“The termination of the Dish acquisition does not affect TPG’s acquisition of the remaining 70 percent stake in DirecTV from AT&T, which is expected to close in the second half of 2025,” DirecTV said.
EchoStar was hoping to get rid of the declining satellite TV business and focus on its cellular ambitions. When the deal was announced on September 30, EchoStar said it would be able “to focus more clearly on enhancing and further deploying its nationwide 5G Open RAN wireless network.”
DirecTV and Dish tried to merge over two decades ago. The deal was scrapped after the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit, saying the merger “would eliminate competition between the nation’s two most significant direct broadcast satellite services.”
AT&T bought DirecTV for $48.5 billion in 2015 but lost nearly 10 million subscribers in the ensuing years before completing a spinoff in 2021. The subscriber losses continued after the spinoff; DirecTV lost 1.8 million subscribers in 2023, bringing it down to an estimated 11.3 million.
EchoStar recently reported having 5.89 million Dish TV subscribers and 2.14 million Sling TV subscribers after the latest customer losses in the satellite division and customer gains for the Sling streaming service.