DirecTV to acquire Dish Network, Sling for $1 in huge pay-TV merger

DirecTV has agreed to buy competing pay-TV provider Dish Network for $1 plus the assumption of debt, the company announced Monday.

If approved by regulators, the acquisition will include the purchase of Dish TV and Sling TV from owner EchoStar in exchange for DirecTV taking on $9.75 billion of Dish's debt, according to a joint statement.

The competing companies tried for a similar $18.5 billion deal in 2002 but were shot down by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for monopoly and antitrust concerns.

Challenges of 'cutting the cord' cited

“DIRECTV operates in a highly competitive video distribution industry,” said Chief Executive Officer Bill Morrow 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..."

Citing "cutting the cord" as one of the major challenges pay-tv providers face in a streaming market, DirecTV and Dish acknowledged that streaming services "now have subscription numbers that far exceed those of pay TV distributors," citing a joint 63% loss in satellite customers since 2016.

Additionally, AT&T announced Monday the $7.6 billion sale of its 70% stake in DirecTV to private equity firm Texas Pacific Group (TPG).