As reported by The Wall Street Journal (TWSJ) this last Friday, August 28th, AT&T is evaluating different options for DirecTV, including a possible sale. According to information from TWSJ, AT&T  and its advisers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been in talks with private-equity suitors about the satellite TV unit, some of the people familiar with the matter said. Potential bidders include investment funds Apollo Global Management Inc and Platinum Equity, these people said.

In early August, Dish Network CEO, Charlie Ergen, reported that a merger of his company’s satellite operations with those of DirecTV was ‘inevitable’. Also, last year, John Stankey, CEO of WarnerMedia (AT&T), also in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, acknowledged that different options had been explored for DirecTV, although, at that time, he denied rumours related to DirecTV sale and said the DTH is ‘an important part of what we are going to be doing forward’.

In its latest quarterly results report (Q2 2020), Vrio, AT&T’s unit   that concentrates DirecTV’s operations in Latin America and Sky in Brazil,reported 10.7 million subscribers. The figure includes DTH and DirecTV GO clients. On the other hand, AT&T reported that, at the time of canceling DirecTV’s operations in Venezuela, last May, DirecTV recorded 2.2 million subscribers in the country. Apart from that, AT&T recently announced that HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new SVOD OTT, will start its international expansion plans in Latin America, after its official launch in the US, last May.