Future of Streaming: Bundling Services for Consumers

The combined entity aims to simplify content access by bundling services and enhancing user experience for consumers.

### Future Strategy for Combined Subscribers: Navigating the Streaming Landscape
* 📺 The combined entity of DirecTV and DISH aims to **address the challenges faced by consumers managing multiple subscription services** in a competitive market filled with platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
* 🔗 By bundling various direct-to-consumer services together, the companies will offer a **user-friendly interface** that **simplifies navigation, search, and recommendations** for viewers.
* 📉 With nearly 20 million subscribers, this merger is expected to influence industry standards, moving away from **outdated models that offer excessive channels** that consumers do not want to pay for.
* 📊 The focus will be on providing **thinner, genre-specific bundles** that allow consumers to **customize their viewing experience** without unnecessary costs.
* 🔍 The companies have identified consumer pain points, such as **difficulty finding specific content**, and aim to **enhance the viewing experience** through strategic partnerships and new carriage agreements.
* 💰 The financial strategy includes **improving leverage ratios** and ensuring bondholders receive **better deals**, which will facilitate the merger and enable compliance with **regulatory requirements** from the FCC and DOJ.
* 📈 This merger is seen as a necessary step to **regain growth in a rapidly changing market**, allowing the companies to **adapt and thrive by prioritizing consumer needs and preferences**.

Well, welcome to the show. And I ask you this now: strategy going forward, the combined 90 million subscribers you now have. What do you offer them? Is it managed decline? Well, thanks, Caroline. And actually, we're going to offer them something that the new kind of competition cannot. You think about the volume of direct-to-consumer subscription-type services. These are the Netflix, Amazon Prime's, the HBO Max's that are out there. They have a very narrow scope of the content that they offer, the way in which they can only navigate through their platforms. Consumers are left with having to pick and choose multiple subscription services and manage this on their own. They're having to the difficulty now to navigate across these different platforms with a new company with DirecTV and DISH will do is number one. It will actually bundle all of those different services together. We'll still have a form of linear or time-of-day type programming where we're going to let the consumer pick and

choose two or three or four, if that's what they want of these other direct-to-consumer programs. We'll wrap a user interface around that will make navigation easy. It will make search and recommendation easy. But equally as important, Caroline, is that the combined entity with just under 20 million subscribers will give us them a very needed influence on the industry to work with the programmers to say the days of the past of 250 channels are gone. Consumers don't want to pay for content that they are never going to watch, and the programmers are still kind of tied to those old carriage agreements. This influence is going to change that. It is in the interest of the consumers. We think it's in the interests of the programmers in the long run and of course to our company as well. Well, I can see how you offer from a price perspective, and I can also see how ultimately this is about slimming down costs. But what about growth?

Do you think you will ever increase that number of subscribers, or is it about just serving the ones you have now? Well, Caroline, we've really studied the market or what are the pain points of the current environment that consumers feel. And again, having to manage multiple subscriptions, not knowing where your content is. Even the biggest search engines that can't keep up when you're looking for a particular season or episode of your favorite series or a movie that you want to watch. We know that the consumers need more than what's available today. By combining these two companies, having the influence to be able to change those carriage agreements, we're going to give them thinner, linear bundles of genres that they can pick. Well, let them add in and insert in the as VOD or those direct to consumer Netflix or Amazon Prime type service. So this and again, with a very different kind of experience that will allow us to get back into a growth situation.

Now we need the two companies to come together because we are falling fast. You've heard this from a number of different industry experts, so this buys us some time, gives us the influence to shape the industry. That's all about the consumer, and that's going to give something to them that they haven't had. But do we need more streaming? I know that you're thinking about DirecTV Stream and Dish TV, and ultimately it sounds like we're going back to the past by re-bundling the things we've already snipped in terms of the cord. Now what is that bundle passed as not kind of service going into the future? And that's why we believe with the new kind of carriage agreements that it's going to allow you, the rest of the consumers, the rest of your viewers to pick and choose the genres of their choice and not pay for all the rest of it. So it's not as big of a bundle as what

we've seen in the past, and that's what we've been advocating. And that was the deal that we struck with Disney. We fought so hard for it to be able to let the consumers pick what they want to watch and not force them to pay for stuff that they would never tune in to. And that is our future. You have other stakeholders, largely private equity now when it comes to TPG, but also the creditors. And a lot of this is based upon whether or not the bondholders of DISH in particular sign up to this. Do you think that will go through? How painful is it to take those sorts of haircuts? Well, we think the current bondholders of the DBS business under EchoStar with cash are going to have a better deal by converting and exchanging into the debt that we're offering. We think it will be better leverage ratios than what we see today. There's better confidence in terms of this business model about looking

forward into the future without the risks that they might perceive today with our DBS business. We also have advocated and explained that while our initial leverage ratio will be in the 2 to 2 and a half times, that still is better than any other pay-TV provider that is out in the marketplace today. And within a 12 to 24 month window, we're going to be very focused on bringing that leverage ratio down to below two. So that's the reason that we believe they're interested in making this exchange. Lowering that debt, making sure that this M&A deal can happen. And then we, of course, proceed to the FCC and the DOJ for the needed regulatory approvals.

DirecTV CEO Says Dish Customers Will Get More Choices

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Strategy for Growth with 90 Million Subscribers

The company plans to differentiate itself by bundling various direct-to-consumer subscription services, making it easier for consumers to navigate and choose.

With just under 20 million combined subscribers, the entity aims to influence the industry and change the traditional model of offering 250 channels.

The strategy focuses on aligning the interests of consumers, programmers, and the company for long-term success.

Transforming Subscription Services for Consumers

The company aims to address consumer pain points by offering thinner, linear bundles of genres and integrating VOD services.

The merger of two companies is seen as a way to gain influence and shape the industry, ultimately providing consumers with a more tailored experience.

The new carriage agreements will allow viewers to pick and choose genres, reducing the need for a large bundle of services.

Advocating for Consumer Choice in Streaming

The speaker emphasizes the importance of allowing consumers to choose what they want to watch, rather than forcing them to pay for unwanted content.

They mention the involvement of private equity and creditors in the current situation, with a focus on the bondholders of DISH.

The speaker believes that the bondholders will benefit from converting to the new debt being offered, leading to better leverage ratios and increased confidence in the business model.

The company is advocating for a business exchange to lower its initial leverage ratio, which is currently between 2 to 2.

This ratio is still better than other pay-TV providers in the market.

The goal is to reduce the leverage ratio below two within 12 to 24 months, facilitating the M&A deal and proceeding with regulatory approvals from the FCC and DOJ.