The mobile and TV powerhouses will now be working together as one, a scary reality that all competitors must now face.

One of the hottest business topics that always seem to be on the mind of everyone is a merger. No matter how big or how small, these mergers always lead to a wide array of change for everyone in the companies involved, from the CEO all the way down to the average employee. The concept of a merger is always the same; one company buying out another, but the reasoning behind these deals is where the individuality comes out.

Although a few months have passed, the shockwaves of the $67 billion deal between AT&T and DirecTV are still being felt today. The main reasoning behind this colossal transaction was for long term survival, as the future of subscription TV according to Charlie Ergen, CEO of Dish Network and Echostar, is all about “beaming signals into phones rather than piping them into households.” (Bercovici) So rather than saying AT&T now owns DirecTV, we must go further and ask what does this do for the companies?

Well, with AT&T being the second largest mobile network provider in the US, DirecTV increases their customer base by getting access to the 73 million AT&T wireless subscribers. (Bercovici)  Based off multiple discussions in class, as well as logical business thinking, whenever a company grows its consumer base they get much more revenue, which is the exact scenario in this case. Additionally, AT&T gets a new business partner in the NFL, due to DirecTV’s highly coveted NFL Sunday Ticket contract (Bercovici), which is a great addition to their already strong base of partnerships with other firms. All in all, these advantages and many more make AT&T and DirecTV the top companies to watch, as the evolution of TV subscriptions looms.

Works Cited:

Bercovici, Jeff. “AT&T-DirecTV Merger Shows Telecom And Television Are Now The Same Business.”           Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 18 May 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.           <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/05/18/att-directv-merger-shows-telecom-and-          television-are-now-the-same-business/>.