Satellite TV giant DirecTV and Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar said Monday that they cut a deal under which DirecTV will acquire EchoStar’s video distribution business Dish DBS, including Dish TV and Sling TV, through a debt exchange transaction. DirecTV will pay EchoStar $1 plus the assumption of debt.
The landmark deal has been decades in the making, effectively seeing satellite TV giants DirecTV and Dish merge merge. If approved by regulators, it would create the largest pay-TV provider in the U.S.
DirecTV is owned by AT&T and the private equity firm TPG, while EchoStar is publicly traded. Combined, the companies would have about 20 million pay-TV subscribers, millions more than any other pay-TV company (Charter and Comcast each have just over 12 million).
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