About three and a half years ago, long before DIRECTV merged with AT&T, I decided to address the long-persistent rumor that DIRECTV and DISH would merge. This is something that had been coming up like clockwork for about 15 years at that point and to be honest, I was just plain tired of it. I had only been running this blog for about 8 months and it seemed like I’d heard this rumor about 80 times. Back then, I didn’t do a lot of editorials or rants, and this was one of my first.
I lit into the potential merge rumors with a thought piece here, laying out in exacting detail how a merge between the two companies would take so much time to execute, require so much technological change, and so many new contracts that it would require the company to essentially stand still while the competition sped ahead.
So what happened? The article was an early hit for this blog, which needed such a hit at that point. DIRECTV and DISH didn’t merge as I knew they wouldn’t. DIRECTV eventually became part of the AT&T family and they’re being really smart about integrating new technology so that there won’t be any opportunity for the competition to push ahead. So… there you go. It’s a fun article to read and definitely worth a few minutes of your time this Thursday.