Quote from Savings Beagle on March 1, 2021, 10:38 am

AT&T has been shopping DirecTV for a while now, and has finally found a buyer (in part) from which to recoup some of its 2015 investment.

According to the Wall Street Journal, TPG, a private equity firm, has agreed to a 30% stake for $1.8 billion.

Interestingly, AT&T is not only transitioning DirecTV, but also its other pay-TV offerings - AT&T TV and U-verse - into a new and separate entity that will be jointly run by AT&T and TPG.

Many DirecTV subscribers have complained about the service since AT&T's purchase.  Unfortunately, this move doesn't seem to make substantive changes other than to add a management partner and provide AT&T a cash infusion and possibly a bit of financial relief going forward.

Will TPG's experience with media and entertainment be a positive for DirecTV subscribers?  Unfortunately, that is unknown. Considering they only hold a 30% share, it likely wouldn't be significant.

Aside from the financial benefit AT&T receives, this deal probably doesn't mean much to DirecTV subscribers hoping for a change in direction.

We'll have to see if retention deals are affected in any way in the months to come.

As a final note, again according to the Wall Street Journal article, AT&T lost 7 million domestic pay-TV subscribers over the last two years (that's DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse), while Comcast lost 2 million and Dish lost roughly 1 million.  Total subscribers for each service would help with context, but maybe if AT&T was a little better about offering decent retention offers, they wouldn't be leading the pack.