DIRECTV announced a deal Monday with Dish parent company EchoStar to acquire Dish in a deal valued at nearly $10 billion. The deal requires U.S. regulatory approvals, including antitrust clearance.
Under the terms of the purchase agreement, DIRECTV will acquire EchoStar’s video distribution business, including Dish TV and Sling TV, in exchange for a “nominal consideration” of $1 plus the assumption of the Dish unit’s net debt with a total face value of approximately $9.75 billion. The companies expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2025.
In a statement from DIRECTV, the company said it expects the combined company will be better able to invest in its services and work with programmers to deliver smaller packages at lower price points, providing more choices and better value to consumers. "It is expected to also be better positioned to bring together multiple content sources in one easily accessible place. Additionally, the transaction is expected to improve EchoStar’s financial profile as it continues the deployment of its 5G Open RAN wireless network to benefit consumers," according to the statement.
Private equity firm TPG, meanwhile, will acquire AT&T’s remaining 70 percent stake in DIRECTV. The move comes nine years after AT&T purchased the company in 2015 only to sell a 30 percent stake to TPG in 2021, a DIRECTV spokesperson told CNN.
“DIRECTV operates in a highly competitive video distribution industry,” DIRECTV CEO Bill Morrow said in a statement. “With greater scale, we expect a combined DIRECTV and Dish will be better able to work with programmers to realize our vision for the future of TV, which is to aggregate, curate and distribute content tailored to customers’ interests, and to be better positioned to realize operating efficiencies while creating value for customers through additional investment.”
Morrow told Reuters the combined pay TV company would have the clout to negotiate smaller programming packages tailored to consumers' interests. It also plans to offer an improved viewer experience that makes it easier for subscribers to find their favorite shows—whether on a traditional TV channel or via streaming—and manage their subscriptions from one place.
"We believe that consumers don't want to be the aggregators—or at least a majority of consumers in the marketplace would not prefer to have to go out and manage all these multiple accounts of those direct-to-consumer SVOD services," Morrow said in the interview, using the industry term for streaming, or subscription video-on-demand.