DirecTV and Dish’s on-and-off merger saga switches back to off

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DirecTV dropped its $1 woody to bargain Dish aft bondholders rejected it.

By Emma Roth, a quality writer who covers the streaming wars, user tech, crypto, societal media, and overmuch more. Previously, she was a writer and exertion astatine MUO.

Nov 22, 2024, 10:53 PM UTC

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

DirecTV has dropped its plans to get Dish, the institution announced Thursday. The woody would’ve created a TV work megamerger, but it fell done aft Dish bondholders rejected the takeover.

In September, DirecTV reached an agreement to get Dish, Sling TV, and EchoStar’s TV concern for conscionable 1 dollar, portion besides taking connected Dish’s $9.75 cardinal successful debt. However, Dish bondholders — oregon the investors who lend wealth to a institution (and expect to beryllium paid back) — weren’t blessed astir the decision, arsenic the transaction would’ve chopped the value of their holdings by $1.5 billion.

“While we believed a operation of DIRECTV and DISH would person benefitted each stakeholders, we person terminated the transaction due to the fact that the projected Exchange Terms were indispensable to support DIRECTV’s equilibrium expanse and our operational flexibility,” DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow said successful the property release.

This isn’t the archetypal clip a woody betwixt DirecTV and Dish has soured. The Federal Communications Commission blocked a merger betwixt some companies successful 2002. The 2 companies person flirted with the idea of a merger ever since — and they might’ve had a amended accidental astatine occurrence this clip nether the Trump administration.

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