DirecTV To Shed More Than 200 Managers

Pioneering satellite TV provider DirecTV is making significant cuts to its workforce.

The L-A Times reports  the company, which has been struggling with subscriber losses, alerted employees earlier this month that it was cutting 10% of its management staff — or more than 200 workers. The company employs fewer than 10,000 employees and less than half of those are managers, according to people familiar with the downsizing.

The move comes amid an increasingly challenging landscape for pay-TV providers as programming costs soar and traditional customers scale back.

“The entire pay-TV industry is impacted by the secular decline and the increasing rates to secure and distribute programming,” a DirecTV spokesperson said in a statement. “We’re adjusting our operations costs to align with these changes and will continue to invest in new entertainment products and service enhancements.”

DirecTV has been a private company since mid-2021.

After a disastrous six-year ownership, publicly traded AT&T struck a deal with private equity firm TPG to spin off the satellite TV provider but maintain a stake. As part of the transaction, AT&T took $7.1 billion in cash and 70% interest in the new DirecTV. TPG, which contributed $1.8 billion to the venture, secured 30% of the company and took over day-to-day management. Bill Morrow, a former CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco, became DirecTV’s chief executive.

At the time of the spinoff, AT&T’s television brands, including DirecTV, had nearly 16 million customers.

That total marked a dramatic decline from 2015 when AT&T could boast that it was the nation’s largest pay-TV company with 26 million pay-TV customers. AT&T spent nearly $49 billion, plus debt, for DirecTV, which was an invention of Hughes Aircraft Co.