DirecTV and Dish Network are combining to form a pay-TV titan

• DirecTV said on Monday that it had agreed to acquire Dish Network from EchoStar.
• The merger would create one of the US's largest pay-TV providers.
• In a separate deal, AT&T said it would sell its 70% stake in DirecTV to a private-equity firm.

DirecTV announced on Monday that it had agreed to acquire its rival Dish Network from EchoStar in a deal that would create one of the largest pay-TV providers in the US.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval. If it goes through, the resulting provider would have an estimated 20 million subscribers.

The companies said DirecTV would acquire EchoStar's video-distribution business — which includes Dish and Sling TV — for $1 and assume about $9.75 billion of Dish's debt.

Separately, the US telecoms giant AT&T said it had agreed to sell its 70% stake in DirecTV to the private-equity firm TPG for $7.6 billion.

In that deal, announced on Monday morning, TPG will take full control of DirecTV.

A merger between DirecTV and Dish has been decades in the making. The two companies agreed to a deal in the early 2000s before regulators blocked it.

The deal also comes at a challenging time for the pay-TV industry, with DirecTV and Dish being squeezed by streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

In a press release, DirecTV said the deal was necessary to compete in an increasingly crowded paid-TV landscape.

It said consumers were "cutting the cord" and ditching satellite TV for streaming services, with DirecTV and Dish collectively losing 63% of their satellite customers since 2016.