Bulletins

AT&T spins off pay TV business, TPG takes 30% stake

The deal, which was announced Thursday afternoon, sees AT&T spinning off its struggling DirecTV satellite TV business as well as its Uverse TV service and the AT&T TV Now internet TV service into a separate company called DirecTV. AT&T will hold a 70% stake in the new company, while TPG is acquiring 30%.

The terms of the deal put the value of the new entity at a little over $16 billion; back in 2015, the telco spent $67 billion in cash and debt commitments for the satellite TV provider. Since then, AT&T has lost millions of pay TV providers as consumers have embraced streaming services. Over the past two years, more than 7 million customers canceled one of AT&T's TV services.

Janko Roettgers

Janko Roettgers (Twitter, Mastodon) used to be a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.

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Bulletins