Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

@2zik and who, exactly, turned DTV into sh–?

Thanks for playing. Go back out in your deathstar gear and rep the company's brilliance somewhere else.

@1fou+16238v5s - you are full of CRAAAP. You talk as DTV was the shining star of the universe - it was an ok company at one point but it is full of $hit now and needs to be shutdown - once for all

Facebook, Google, Amazon, are looking for sharp DBS brains from DTV :-) Darovanassssiaannnn, Goshgorrriannn, they need VPs your caliber .... LOL

@1wik+16238v5s: there were no "huge retention bonuses" paid to DTV employees. At least not to anyone below VP level. That's just another myth floated around by bitter little T-tards out there who need to blame anyone other than their glorious leaders for the current state of abject garbage the company is in.

@1fsr+16238v5s: I have to admit your blind loyalty to AT&T and your willingness to defend management's questionably successful performance to date is quite astonishing. But at least you're not one of those T racists spreading their hate and ugliness around.

@1fsr:

Remind me again about how great ATTTV, U-verse, and HBO Max are doing.

What you fail to understand (or what is just too difficult for you to understand) is that nobody is saying that had it stayed independent DIRECTV would be a raging success. But you seem to be under the belief that DTV is failing in spite of visionary T leadership. DTV would almost certainly be having problems if it were still independent, but that doesn't mean that T hasn't made things get worse faster.

For you to continue to deny that T management has done anything other than make things worse is just evidence that you're the one living in a revisionist history/alternate reality.

Let's say DTV was this really nice house that T wanted to buy. They did. And they looked around and noticed that the roof would need to be replaced, that some plumbing was old, and that the stucco was starting to chip. Now, as the new owners T could do one of two things:

1. Invest time, money, and effort into fixing the problems and possibly even make updates like adding a Ring doorbell, a new lawn, etc.
2. Pat themselves on the back for the purchase and then just ignore all of the problems only to whinge five years later about how rotten the house is because the roof leaks, the pipes burst and the stucco is now flaking off.

At that point does one blame the neglected and mis-managed house for falling apart and becoming a drain on the wallet? Of course not. Unless you happen to be a T cultist who refuses to accept the responsibility and consequences for the mismanagement.

Open your eyes. Blaming DTV for T's problems is about as ridiculous as blaming trees for catching fire if someone douses them with gasoline and tosses a match.

So, who do you blame for the HBO Max failure? Or the ATTTV disaster? Or the DIRECTV Now fiasco? I suppose those are also all the fault of big bad DTV, right?

With such astounding business acumen, deep understanding of causality, and remarkable ability to point fingers and deflect blame I bet you're a Director or higher.

@1xvf: “T-holes”. How cute, you come up with that yourself? Are you also the one who came up with “Ratty” and “Stinky”? Do you crack yourself up when you quip about “Obummer” and “Libtards”?

I often sit around and ponder what kind of adult uses id–tic nicknames that my 4 year old daughter would be embarrassed to use. Clearly the kind that happily hide behind internet anonymity and wax poetic about the great DTV of the 90’s.

“DTV s—s now because of my management, not because of me, the product that it is, or the world we live in.” That’s what you sound like, read it out loud and think about how ridiculous it sounds.

If only T had not purchased DTV, I really hate that we’ll never be able to experience the great DTV literally change the world as they become the first and only pay-tv provider to buck all societal trends and NOT lose customers. Man, what a delusional world you live in.

How much were these retention bonuses I keep hearing about?

@pby - you are 100% correct - unfortunately, the overpaid DTV employees are unhappy about the rapidly dying business ... yes AT&T management is clueless and should pay for the huge acquisition mistakes and overpaying not only paying to acquire the company but overpaying DTV employee huge retention bonuses .... laughable - as DTV employees were going to work for Google, Apple, Facebook ... just a joke. DBS is dying folks - smell the coffee - sooner of later AT&T will either dump DTV or completely shut it down. It is sinking T rapidly and need to get rid of this losing business ASAP.

DTV is a losing business regardless of how great it was in the past - wake up DTV employees - get another job. You are in denial - like COVID is a hoax DTV is great! come on - AT&T leadership is clueless and overpaid of this losing business - DBS is not the future ... you have enjoyed the needless huge retention bonuses - time to pay that back and maybe go to Dish if you think DBS is an amazing business -
I keep hearing DTV was one the greatest things that happened after sliced bread .... maybe but now is it just a dying business and I am sorry if you work there. Now DTV and the mo–n Stinkey ruined the great AT&T company - You may not know about Bell Labs - but some of the new technologies you are enjoying today were created by AT&T/Bell Labs.

Really? DirecTV is why AT&T is having problems?

Oh, those rotten DirecTV people being such bad corporate citizens by intentionally harming poor, successful, innocent T! They should be ashamed of themselves.

If only someone from T leadership would take over DirecTV to fix it and make it into a shining success, like their mobile phone service, their cable service, their internet service, and their amazing AT&T TV and HBO Max!

Sigh.

No wonder T is in the toilet. So many of the employees are such incredible dunces.

@pby: Everything you say about DTV's prospects is true. Now, how about a game, hotshot? Who has owned, managed, directed, and led DIRECTV for the past five years?

Once again some arrogant T-hole with little more than bitterness, anger, and a lot of stupidity whinges about how rotten DTV is, how it is the anchor keeping T from reaching the stars, and how anyone acknowledging what the place was like before being molested by T is engaging in revisionist history.

The truth is that DTV may well be in the same spot now whether or not T bought it in 2015. But we'll never know. What we do know is that any decline in DTV revenue, subscriber base, performance, etc has been accelerated and magnified by having the jackholes and douchebags at T come in and muck everything up.

Think of it like this: If one has a classic car one needs the right mechanical understanding, parts, time, patience, and money to keep it in top performance. So if you give it to some teenager that just finished one semester of auto-shop you shouldn't blame the car when it falls apart.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, pby. Your extremely stupid and arrogant comment shows you to have the same mental deficiency and diseased personality of the T-tards who came in and phoqued up DTV beyond the point of repair.

Now go away and get laid off, loser

I do bonded pair installs everyday with absolutely zero training !

“Blah blah blah... DTV was great before the purchase... blah blah blah... we exceeded this and that... blah blah blah... morale was high... blah”

You would not be exceeding anything financial, morale would not be high, nor would you be sitting there singing the praises of your leadership had the purchase never happened. That’s all revisionist history nonsense and irrelevant. DTV is dragging the company down because it’s a dead product that apparently millions of people a year are tired of paying for, plain and simple. Period. End of story. Quit your half truth excuses and other babbling silliness about the halcyon days of DTV. It’s absurd. They’re gone forever and would have been gone forever regardless of anything that happened, up to and including being acquired by AT&T.

OK I have been quiet, but I can't hold my frustration.

AT&T acquired MediaOne back in 2000. AT&T put their big government model in place and drove the formerly profitable broadband operation into the ground. In 2002, AT&T sold the former MediaOne business to Comcast at pennies on the dollar.

Why would anyone think that history would not repeat itself??

When DTV was purchased by AT&T, the DTV business was nimble and constantly exceeded financial expectations. Employee morale was extremely high and undesired employee attrition was very low.

AT&T's big governance "Telecom" micro-management mindset has k–led and will k–l their attempts at building a true media icon. Don't forget that DTV has been a cash cow for AT&T that has suffered from a lack of attention or funding.

Please don't point to the former DTV business or the associated team as the reason for the performance challenges that poor AT&T leadership has orchestrated.

Mark my word...Elliot has conned Stinkey and Board, to strip ATT to bare bones. They are getting ready to sell-off everything, and get a merger takeover. Stinky, Randy, and the gang...stand to make hundreds of millions on the stock. And this is ALL legal.

Prosecute him for paying too many workers and paying too much dividend.

DTV and Time Warner are not k–ling the company. It's the $180B debt load and mismanagement by T's execs.

Yet again some uninformed, bitter loudmouth has to go on about how big, bad old DIRECTV is the cause of all of poor AT&T's problems.

Open your eyes.

The reason DTV is hemorrhaging customers isn't because it's a bad service but because the T overlords have essentially first poisoned it, and are now ignoring it and letting it die. All of the new video investment has been in ATTTV, ATTTVNow, and HBO Max. The result? Fewer than 500K total ATTTV/ATTTVNow subs and an underwhelming HBO Max rollout.

There's the source of the money loss. DTV is now subsidizing Stinkhole's quixotic quest to re-invent video service. This despite the fact that DTV had 17 million subs at the start of 2020, while the rest of the video options had fewer than 20% of that number.

Just imagine if T had actually taken the time and effort to look at DTV, integrate it with U-verse, and develop a decent streaming option for the service. Instead we have a situation where the lead TV product requires faster than DSL Internet connection which isn't available in most of the nation - not even LA and NY; where the marquee streaming service is overpriced and clumsy; and where the legacy tv services (DTV and Uverse) are ignored and only sold as the last option.

So if you want to understand why DTV is in such bad shape don't blame the service, blame the managers.

Unless the CEO does egregious fraud, like Bernie Ebers did at WorldCon - CEOs are not jailed for failures. They are handsomely rewarded, visa-vie, Jeff Emmelt, and the CEO of WeWork, and of course Ratty and Stinky will be no exception.

What will happen is that eventually, some future CEO, once Ratty and Stinky move on to ruin some other company, will sell DTV and TW for a few pennies on the $ and when it is cheap enough someone will buy them up or they will be spun off again like T did with NCR. This is the history of T's mergers.

In any case, Ratty and Stink y have no worries, they will be handsomely rewarded while the rest of us grunts get a kick in the balls.

agreed 100%!!!! He destroyed the company and needs to pay for it - instead they promoted him to CEO... promote incompetence, arrogance and stupidity because he has a loud voice and thinks he is scaring others...this loser should be like the ENRON chief behind bars.