As the pay-TV industry continues its decline, DirecTV and Dish Network — two long-standing competitors who have considered merging on multiple occasions over the years — may be on the verge of a union.

DirecTV is in discussions with EchoStar , Dish's parent company, to acquire Dish and Sling TV, according to reports from Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. A deal could be finalized as early as Monday, Sept. 30, according to these reports.

Representatives for DirecTV and Dish did not respond to requests for comment.

The deal is being driven by EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen’s desire to pay off $1.98 billion of debt that matures in November 2024, CNBC reported. The company’s debt load has raised the specter of EchoStar seeking a bankruptcy reorganization if it can’t raise new capital or refinance the debt.

DirecTV was launched in 1994 and Dish followed in 1996, and the two satellite TV providers offered strong competition to established cable TV operators. However, over the past decade, both have witnessed a significant decline in their subscriber base (as has traditional cable TV) due to the rise of streaming services, leading to a mass exodus of consumers from the sector. DirecTV and Dish have introduced internet-based pay-TV packages, but these have not been able to offset the losses experienced on the satellite side.

Collectively, DirecTV and Dish have nearly 20 million customers, which is approximately half their peak subscriber levels. DirecTV service had an estimated 11.3 million subscribers (including AT&T U-verse TV) as of the end of 2023, according to estimates from Leichtman Research Group, compared to a peak of 25.5 million at the end of 2016. Dish, which once boasted over 14 million customers, ended the second quarter of 2024 with 8.07 million pay-TV subscribers (including 6.07 million for Dish TV and 2 million for Sling TV).

Prior attempts at a merger between DirecTV and Dish, dating back to 2001, faced regulatory obstacles. However, today, “It’s difficult to imagine that regulators would block a deal,” MoffettNathanson principal analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a note to clients last week. “It's better to have one [satellite TV operator] than none.”

AT&T, which acquired DirecTV in 2014 , three years ago divested itself of the satellite TV operator , retaining a 70% stake, with private-equity firm TPG Capital holding the remaining 30%.

Two years ago, DirecTV experienced a setback when it lost its exclusive agreement with the NFL for the Sunday Ticket premium game package, which it had offered since 1994. Google secured a seven-year contract with the NFL to sell the package through YouTube, beginning with the 2023-24 season; currently, Sunday Ticket includes all out-of-market Sunday regular-season NFL games that are broadcast on Fox and CBS.

Moffett observed that the collaborative benefits between DirecTV and Dish would “likely be much more limited than you might expect.” For instance, the two companies have no shared advantages in the satellite fleet because they use different conditional access (video scrambling) technology. “It’s hard to contend that a merger shouldn’t occur; it clearly should,” Moffett wrote. “Consolidation during a period of natural decline is always anticipated. But it would be incorrect to overestimate its significance. Extending the anticipated lifespan of satellite TV by a year or so won’t change the narrative for programmers, distributors, or even for satellite TV.”