A DirecTV-Dish Merger Would Create a Mega-Pay TV Operator, But Won’t Stop the Industry’s Decline | Analysis

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The deal for $1 and $9.75 billion in debt is more about finding a “sense of stability” in a declining market as DirecTV and Dish transition to streaming, analysts tell TheWrap

DirecTV-Dish
DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow and Dish and EchoStar co-founder and chairman Charles Ergen (Photo illustration courtesy of Chris Smith/TheWrap/Getty Images)

After over a decade of on and off talks, a merger between DirecTV and Dish is poised to become a reality. The deal announced on Monday for the former to acquire the latter for $1 and $9.75 billion in debt will form the largest pay TV operator with around 18 million subscribers — leapfrogging past Charter Communications and Comcast — as it looks to stem satellite TV’s bleeding from cord-cutting.

Still, while analysts told TheWrap that they anticipate the merger will pass regulatory scrutiny, the combination will have minimal benefits and would not do anything meaningful to stop the pay TV industry’s subscriber declines, they said. 

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