Competition
DirecTV is looking to become a more competitive force in rural markets, ethnic communities (especially Hispanic populations) and MDUs. "There are places where we know we haven’t been as competitive as we should be," DirecTV CEO Chase Carey said at yesterday’s Smith Barney media conference. Carey said DirecTV would beef up its efforts to reach the marketplace in 3Q and even more in 4Q. He also noted that the dishheads RBOC partnerships will play a bigger role in ’05. DBS’ approach to "VOD" (aka large capacity DVRs) are "more desirable and much easier to use," Carey opined, predicting it’ll prove to be the "winning" technology. "There is a renewed effort by cable to compete with us," Carey told the crowd, specifically pointing to a renewed level of advertising by cable against satellite in the NY area. "We think that will affect how we move forward." Coming off a week of satellite radio announcement from CES, one attendee asked if DirecTV was interested in that business. Carey responded that he is "happy to leave satellite radio" to Sirius and XM.