AT&T is poised to acquire America's biggest satellite television provider, DirecTV, in a deal....
Source: CNN
The boards of the two companies were meeting on Sunday to approve the plan, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meetings. The deal could be announced as soon as Sunday afternoon.
The combination of AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and DirecTV (DTV, Fortune 500) would continue a wave of consolidation in the television and telecommunications industries. Comcast (CCV), the nation's biggest cable provider, is currently awaiting regulatory approval for its plan to merge with Time Warner Cable (TWC, Fortune 500). And the parent company of wireless provider Sprint, SoftBank (SFTBF), is trying to buy T-Mobile (TMUS).
Representatives of AT&T and DirecTV did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday and Sunday. But CNNMoney viewed portions of a internal presentation extolling the virtues of the deal for shareholders of the two companies. The slideshow's veracity was corroborated by one of the people who prepared it.
The transaction "creates content distribution leader across mobile, video and broadband platforms," one of the slides of the presentation says.
FULL story and video at link.
FULL title: AT&T is poised to acquire America's biggest satellite television provider, DirecTV, in a deal worth almost $50 billion.
Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/18/news/companies/att-directv/
CNN: In other news experts say the darn plane has to be somewhere!
= new reply since forum marked as read
I fought against cable TV monopolies in the eighties, in the early satellite days, it appears I wasted my time...
They have to clear broadband space somehow in order to make room for their shiny new fast lane for all those pay to players.
You don't expect them to voluntarily invest billions in improving their network or their customer service do you? 
Seriously, I have had DirecTV for 12 years and am completely satisfied with the product and the service. I expect that to change before the ink is even dry on this shitty deal. Yay capitalism!
Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron made the following statement:
“The captains of our communications industry have clearly run out of ideas. Instead of innovating and investing in their networks, companies like AT&T and Comcast are simply buying up the competition. These takeovers are expensive, and consumers end up footing the bill for merger mania.
“AT&T reportedly is paying $50 billion and taking on an additional $19 billion in debt to buy DirecTV. That's a fortune to spend on a satellite-only company at a time when the pay-TV industry is stagnating and broadband is growing.
“For the amount of money and debt AT&T and Comcast are collectively shelling out for their respective mega-deals, they could deploy super-fast gigabit-fiber broadband service to every single home in America. But these companies don’t care about providing better services or even connecting more Americans. It's about eliminating the last shred of competition in a communications sector that's already dominated by too few players."
http://www.freepress.net/node/106292
