THROWBACK THURSDAY: DIRECTV bought by AT&T?

Wow, the world changes quickly. It was just about three years ago that we first started talking about AT&T buying DIRECTV. The announcement echoed through the DIRECTV community like crazy. There was a lot of speculation in those early days, everything from AT&T shutting down DIRECTV completely to simply letting it starve on the vine, to a bunch of folks who believed that AT&T’s deep pockets would benefit DIRECTV in ways we never expected.

How it shook out

For the first couple of years, things looked really good. As DIRECTV dealers, we at Solid Signal also became AT&T Preferred Dealers. That meant we could offer more products and services than ever. The streaming products became free or near-free to those who had certain unlimited AT&T plans. The future looked so bright, I had to wear shades.

And then… well… things began to not look so good. DIRECTV, which entered into the AT&T family with something like 23 million subscribers, started to lose them. Was it just cord-cutting? Or, were we starting to see evidence that AT&T was skimping on hardware development. The head of AT&T made some ill-timed comments supporting the idea that he wanted all satellite customers to move to streaming.

At the same time, business customers started noticing that their supply of receivers was drying up. Not only that, but the receivers coming into the pipelines were getting older and older. DIRECTV boxes last nearly forever, but there is only so many times you can refurbish the same box, right?

The silent days

For a few years, it seemed almost like “DIRECTV” was a dirty word in the halls of AT&T. Did you notice that you stopped seeing commercials for DIRECTV Satellite? Maybe it also struck you as funny that the streaming product, originally called “DIRECTV NOW,” was all of a sudden rebranded “AT&T TV NOW.” Newer hardware had the globe logo, with no DIRECTV-specific branding at all. It seemed for a moment like the satellite service we’d enjoyed for two decades was disappearing like Marty McFly’s siblings on that picture in Back to the Future.

But, the sun was about to come out again.

Something good about 2021

I have a feeling that most of us will go our whole lives thinking of 2020 and 2021 as some of the toughest years we’ve ever lived through. But, something did happen that made me and a lot of other fans smile. In early 2021, AT&T announced that it was spinning off DIRECTV into its own entity. Sure, close to 10 million subscribers had left, and AT&T would still have a financial stake. But finally, DIRECTV would get a chance to see the sun again. The spinoff was done in record time, and DIRECTV satellite fans rejoiced.

Yes, it’s true that the new DIRECTV didn’t experience an instant turnaround. But, look all around and you can see signs of life for satellite TV. There’s a new commercial-grade receiver — finally — and you’re starting to see commercials and other promotions for satellite TV. There’s been a massive level of investment in the broadcast infrastructure, leading to picture quality looking better than ever.

It takes a long time for consumer electronics companies to make changes. Anytime you’re coming up with new hardware, it has to work its way through the government approval process. This takes years. I mean, years. So the plans laid on that day in early ’21 probably still haven’t even seen sunlight yet.

That means things are only going to get better for the (admittedly smaller) group of satellite TV fans out there. I can’t wait to write another “Throwback” article about that.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.