The enthusiast forums are eating up the news that AT&T is spinning off its DIRECTV, AT&T TV, and U-Verse TV units into a separate company. It will take months for the change to truly happen, of course. That leaves plenty of time for speculation. How about we start talking about it too?
What changes today: nothing
The deal probably won’t even officially close until the third quarter. There are all sorts of legal and regulatory hurdles to be jumped over. Deals of this size don’t “just happen.” Even when we do reach Day 1 of DIRECTV’s independence, nothing will happen right away. I think you have to look back to the days when AT&T first bought DIRECTV. It took well over a year before you started to see real change.
Things might move a little faster this time around, but they aren’t going to be instant. Honestly, that’s a good thing. It means that there won’t be interruptions to service or major problems with technology.
Remember that AT&T still owns 70% of the new company and it’s likely that there will still be a lot of shared technology and services for a long time to come.
What could change?
That’s really up to all of you to comment on. Do you like things as they are? What would you change? Do you look forward to some sort of new hardware? What about synergies between streaming and satellite?
I think the exciting thing here is that nothing’s off the table. DIRECTV has always been a “disruptor” in its field and we could see them double down on that kind of thinking. The golden age of broadcasting isn’t over, folks, and it’s exciting to think that there could be some new possibilities.
What’s for certain
The world of video is very different than it was in 1994 when DIRECTV first came on the scene. Back then live video came from antennas or small cable companies. Today there are entertainment conglomerates like Paramount, Comcast, and Warner that operate streaming operations as well as live TV and even content delivery operations. There are options like AT&T TV that weren’t even technologically possible a few years ago.
That’s what makes it so exciting to me. How about you? Leave a comment below and tell us what you’re looking forward to. A lot of AT&T / DIRECTV people read this site… who knows? You might just make a difference in the future of entertainment.
