Report: DirecTV, Dish in talks for merger again

AT&T and joint-venture partner TPG Inc. are “in talks to combine their DirecTV service with Dish,” according to sources. The sources said that the discussions between DirecTV and Dish parent company EchoStar Corp. are “in the early stages.” An agreement "hasn’t been reached and talks could still end without one.” The merger would “create a single company with about 20 million subscribers.” It also would “cap years of speculation about consolidation in the satellite-TV business." EchoStar closed its acquisition of Dish in December. A combination of DirecTV and Dish would “likely attract antitrust scrutiny,” as an earlier plan did when the U.S. Justice Department sued in 2002 to block a merger. But an agreement now “might clear hurdles because the industry has changed substantially since that time” (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 9/13).