In BellSouth???s first quarter earnings release, it was announced that the BellSouth/DIRECTV package added 105,000 customers during the first quarter. BellSouth has been the most successful telecom venture for DIRECTV as they have contributed 628,000 new subscribers to DIRECTV via its service that bundles the satellite TV offering along with DSL and voice.
As Stephanie mentioned in a previous post, most people are assuming that DIRECTV will be replaced by Echostar???s Dish Network once the AT&T acquisition of BellSouth is complete, which is expected to occur in 2007. Echostar has been a longtime partner of SBC, the predecessor company of AT&T. By the close of the acquisition, BellSouth will likely have over one million DIRECTV customers. Those one million households will be a huge ???swing vote??? in the initial primaries of the latest reincarnation of the video wars. Dish Network is best positioned to capture those one million subscribers.
