Satellite TV’s 3-Headed Rival: Cable Plus Internet Plus Phone

SATELLITE TV's 3-HEADED RIVAL: CABLE PLUS INTERNET PLUS PHONE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
Rupert Murdoch, who controls the News Corporation, has been discussing trading his shares in DirectTV to John C. Malone’s company, Liberty Media, in return for Liberty’s stock in Mr. Murdoch’s company. The idea that Mr. Murdoch would be willing to surrender his stake in DirecTV, the largest American satellite broadcaster, also says a lot about the competitive pressures on the satellite business. "Rupert is nothing if not a pragmatist,” said Craig E. Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “Satellite has a tough road ahead and he has, for all intents and purposes, bet the company on an alternative vision, with Internet acquisitions like MySpace.” During the last decade, DirecTV and its main domestic rival, EchoStar Communications, grabbed 27 million subscribers, a bit more than a quarter of the pay television market in the United States. While their growth is slowing, they are still doing well financially. In the second quarter, DirecTV earned $459 million, up 182 percent from a year earlier. Its revenue grew 12 percent, to $3.5 billion. For many customers, however, there are better ways to get connected. Lowly wires, snaked across utility poles and buried under sidewalks, now can give people more viewing choices than satellites. And they can carry data into homes and back out, providing the Internet and voice services that cannot come from the sky.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/business/media/18marketplace.html
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