Word: directv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...they're going to try to do it with satellite. Why? Vivendi chairman Jean-Marie Messier settled on EchoStar-Hughes (which owns DirecTV) for the same reason Rupert Murdoch wanted Hughes before EchoStar moved in. Most of the nation's cable lines are in the hands of rivals like AOL Time Warner (parent company of this writer) and half-rivals like AT&T Broadband and Comcast who have plenty of content-distribution deals already inked - making reasonably priced access via cable into the U.S. couch-potato market hard to find. Making EchoStar-DirecTV and its control of 90 percent...
...billion to help the war of attrition against cable. Vivendi, for only $1.5 billion (a heck of a lot less than, say, AT&T Broadband and its 18 million homes are going for these days), gets a direct pipeline into 16 million U.S. homes (6 million, if the EchoStar- DirecTV deal gets spiked) with none of the hassles of actually owning things like cables stretching through suburban areas...
...demand (in Time Warner cable homes). Or Cablevision, which raised rates in suburban New York by 12 percent last year alone, might slow down on the price hikes. Or they might both sic their lobbyists on Washington - Murdoch will come along for the ride - and bust up the EchoStar-DirecTV union, putting satellite TV back in infighting mode and Vivendi back in the U.S.-distribution minor leagues...
...Long in a series of Radio Shack ads has turned her around: “When I see how Howie’s interested in football, but Teri’s interested in shopping, well, it just makes me want to go to my local Radio Shack and purchase DirecTV and cell phones?...
...DirecTV has been an elusive prize for Murdoch. Hughes chairman Michael Smith long spurned his advances, an impediment that disappeared in May when Smith did: he was recently replaced by Harry Pearce, a top GM executive seen as sympathetic to Murdoch's bid. Just when the deal seemed imminent, though, Ergen made his play...