Word: directv
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Ergen isn't hauling dishes anymore, but he is still the scrappiest guy in satellite TV. Last week he made a $32 billion all-stock bid for DirecTV, the largest satellite company in the U.S. The offer puts Ergen in an uphill battle against Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who was on the brink of clinching his own deal for DirecTV. If Ergen outmaneuvers Murdoch in the battle that's likely to unfold in the next few weeks, he will control most of the nation's satellite sets. If he loses, the move--like a well-executed bluff...
...DirecTV--owned by General Motors' Hughes Electronics Corp.--would be the missing piece of the planetary puzzle for Murdoch's News Corp. Its Sky Global Networks has 85 million subscribers spread across Europe, Asia and Latin America. DirecTV would deliver the U.S. in a bold way. The addition of DirecTV's 10 million households would make Murdoch No. 1 in satellite TV in the U.S., and No. 3 in pay TV, behind only AT&T's cable operations, with more than 14 million cable subscribers, and AOL Time Warner, with almost 13 million. (AOL Time Warner is the parent...
...Microsoft. The Xbox is being made by Flextronics, a company that few consumers have heard of but that computer and telecommunications-equipment makers are eager to do business with. Indeed, near Building 12 are 16 production lines for Cisco Systems digital network routers. Other buildings produce Palm Pilots and DirecTV set-top boxes...
...together. There are separate services in English and Spanish at the Baptist church; Alcoholics Anonymous offers meetings for Anglos at 6, for Mexicans at 8. But everyone strolls along the seaside malecon to hear the mariachis and goes to the same black-market dealers for illegal hookups to U.S. DirecTV satellites. "It's great," says Lou Wells, 67, a former railroad clerk. "We get hbo, Showtime, and we can watch $150 pay-per-view fights for free...
Right now, Ultimate TV is only available with DirecTV, which means you have to commit to satellite to use it (score one for TiVo, which works with cable too). Ultimate TV combines receiver and recorder in one box--which should, in theory, be better. But for some reason (possibly all the extra circuitry Microsoft had to pack into it) my Ultimate TV buzzed and hummed like a mini-fridge, even when powered down. I had to unplug it to get any sleep. So much for all those shows I wanted to record overnight...