For years the rumor has floated out there that either Verizon or AT&T would buy DirecTV in order to have direct control of the company's satellite TV operations. Sometimes these rumors are based in conjecture, but more often than not they're based on nothing whatsoever. With DirecTV prepared to get a new CEO (their last CEO just departed to be Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man at News Corp.), the rumors are apparently bubbling up once again. According to Reuters, representatives from both AT&T and Verizon have approached Liberty Media over the last few years about a sale, and the outlet cites sources who believe new CEO Michael White is little more than a "babysitter" until this endlessly-rumored deal can be accomplished.

Confirming one of the worst kept secrets so far this year, DirecTV CEO Chase Carey is quitting his job at DirecTV to return to News Corporation, where he'll be Rupert Murdoch's right hand man. Under Carey's watch, DirecTV renegotiated their exclusive deal with the NFL (the bane of cable and telcoTV viewers everywhere), led the industry in HD channel total and quality, and fused with Liberty Media. One notable thing Carey didn't try to do was force the company back into the broadband business after several previous failed attempts. Carey's new boss, Rupert Murdoch, hasn't had much nice to say about DirecTV over the years, at one point calling the company "a turd bird."

DirecTV CEO Chase Carey's potential departure for News Corporation has resulted in yet another round of rumors that DirecTV could be sold. According to Collins Stewart cable and satellite analyst Tom Eagan, Carey's done the "heavy lifting" in turning the satellite carrier around and negotiating the Liberty Media merger and NFL contract extension -- and is now ready to be Rupert Murdoch's number right arm at News Corp. AT&T, who just selected DirecTV as their exclusive TV resale partner in non-U-Verse neighborhoods, has been rumored to be a prime candidate to take over DirecTV for as long as we can remember. Other than stock fluctuations (which may be the whole point), nothing ever comes of the rumors.

Charter Communications sued DirecTV earlier this week for false advertising, claiming that DirecTV ads urging customers to flee Charter due to their bankruptcy and reorganization infer that the company is on the brink of disaster. A Judge has subsequently ruled that DirecTV must stop running the ads unless they are modified. "We are still able to point to the fact that Charter is in bankruptcy and the outcome is uncertain," DirecTV says -- they apparently just can't advise customers to run for their lives.

The St Louis Post-Dispatch reports this morning that Charter has filed suit against DirecTV seeking damages and an injunction over a recent DirecTV ad campaign. Charter claims the DirecTV ads infer that Charter's recent bankruptcy filing means Charter will soon go under, and that customers should flee to DirecTV in order to continue receiving television service. From the complaint:Technically, Charter's ugly fight with creditors could end badly, resulting in the dissection and sale of Charter assets, but Charter repeatedly insists that customers will see no impact from the reorganization.

Laughing at the recession, DirecTV added 460,000 new subscribers in the first quarter, 67% more than a year ago. The company noted their churn rate was just 1.3% (a ten year low), despite added competition from TelcoTV, First quarter 2009 revenues increased 7% to $4.90 billion with $201 million in net income.

DirecTV continues its reign as the king of high-definition channel counts, though Verizon's FiOSTV service keeping pace with the satellite operator, according to new analysis by market research provider Pike & Fischer. According to the firm's press release, as of January DirecTV was offering as many as 104 channels in HD -- just one more than Verizon. Meanwhile Comcast, which offers as few as 22 HD channels in some markets, comes in last in the study -- as the company is still working to free up enough capacity to catch up with industry HD leaders. That hasn't stopped Comcast from criticizing Verizon's HD lineup lately. Of course by this time next year, HD channel counts should be a meaningless metric, with carriers competing on image quality (and someday, maybe, price).

According to posts over at the High Definition Forum, DirecTV will be raising the price of programming and hardware starting March 4. The majority of tiers (including Basic, Preferred Choice, Select, Choice, and Choice Xtra) will be seeing $3 price bumps. Most of these programming tiers saw roughly the same $3 hikes back in February of 2008. Some might be outraged to know the cost of DVR service seems to be increasing one penny, from $5.99 to $6.00 per month.

Back in July of last year, AT&T announced that the company’s agreement with Dish Network to sell bundled TV, phone and broadband packages would be terminated at the end of the year. Not long after that, AT&T announced a partnership to market and sell co-branded DirecTV services exclusively starting in January 2009.

DirecTV recently started offering video on demand services via their HR2x series DVRs, using your home broadband connection. Now Techcrunch reports that the satellite provider may be jumping more completely into the online video arena, offering a Hulu-like online service. Details at this point are scarce teetering on non-existent, but it makes sense considering DirecTV's recent online video options. Two weeks ago, DirecTV released the beta version of DirecTV2PC, which will let owners of an HR2x series DirecTV HD-DVR stream video to their PC.

Back in July AT&T announced that the company’s agreement with Dish Network to sell bundled TV, phone and broadband packages would be terminated at the end of this year. This caused speculation that the purpose of the announcement was to incite a bidding war for AT&T partnership between Dish and DirecTV.

News Corp. boss and former chief of DirecTV Rupert Murdoch says he sold his ownership stake in the satellite company, in part, because he was afraid it could never compete with the cable triple play. "I was frightened of the Triple Play in cable and then a superior service coming from the telephone companies," says Murdoch. "I might have been wrong," he says, adding "I don’t think I’m wrong in the long term." Despite several failed stints at trying to offer broadband (via DSL, satellite and even BPL), new owner Liberty Media continually hints that they're keeping the possibility open.

Some time ago, DirecTV decided to seriously scale down their relationship with TiVo in order to push customers toward their own HD-DVR hardware (the HR20s). Older "DirecTiVo" customers still saw their series 2 hardware supported, but they weren't able to net any of the interesting broadband perks TiVo has since developed, and they were left behind in the transition to MPEG-4.

The satellite TV industry took a hit in the second quarter of this year when Dish Network announced the first-ever quarterly subscriber loss. However, the same problem does not seem to be plaguing rival DirecTV.

Following an announcement of the first-ever quarterly subscriber loss for a U.S. satellite TV operator, Dish Network appears to have renewed long-dead discussions about a merger with rival DirecTV.

A few days ago, in competitive response to Verizon's NYC FiOSTV launch, DirecTV announced they'd be offering content in 1080p high definition. Not to be outdone, Dish Network today announced that 1080p VOD content will be activated and available on all MPEG-4 HD DVR receivers starting tomorrow, stealing DirecTV's thunder with the first 1080p offering in the industry. Dish says MPEG-4 capable DVR owners should see the update shortly, and Dish is offering users a discounted price for the 1080p version of the film "I Am Legend."

Given I still remember the carnage from DirecTV's failed stints as both satellite broadband and DSL provider, I was surprised when the company (and new owner Liberty Media) started showing renewed interest in becoming a broadband provider. The company dipped their toes in the idea by signing a reseller agreement with Clearwire, and offering broadband via powerline (BPL) in a now defunct Texas deployment.

An interesting thread over in the AVSForums discusses how Comcast is sacrificing HD image quality as it faces competitive pressure on the HD front from both DirecTV and Verizon. Verizon obviously has ample capacity thanks to their FTTH/coax network (with GPON upgrades and all-IP on the way), and DirecTV decided to dump broadband and focus their satellite capacity on MPEG-4 HD back in 2004.

Dish Network ran into serious problems this week when a new satellite they were planning to rent capacity from failed to reach orbit. DirecTV had better luck, with the launch of their latest satellite (DirecTV 11) going off without a hitch yesterday afternoon after some early launch delays.

Last Friday's launch of the new AMC-14 satellite didn't go so well, and therefore may impact Dish Network's high definition plans. International Launch Services issued a statement on Friday that stated there was "an anomaly during today's Proton mission with the AMC-14 satellite." Since then, reports have indicated that the Russian rocket failed to burn as long as necessary, leaving the satellite short of its intended orbit: story continues..