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25-581: On February 25, 2021, AT&T announced that it would spin off DirecTV into a separate entity, containing the U-verse TV and AT&T TV services, selling a 30% stake to TPG Capital while retaining a 70% stake in the new standalone company. The deal was closed on August 2, 2021. The current U-verse TV ultimately derives from the IPTV part of the former AT&T U-verse triple-play telecommunications service. SBC Communications announced its plans for

50-743: A fiber-optic network and Internet Protocol television (IPTV) deployment in 2004 and unveiled the name "U-verse" (formerly "Project Lightspeed") for the suite of network services in 2005. SBC eventually became AT&T in late 2005, and the AT&;T name was applied for the service. AT&T U-verse was commercially launched June 26, 2006, in San Antonio. By the third quarter of 2012, AT&T U-verse had 4.3 million TV subscribers. At an analyst meeting in August 2015, following AT&T's acquisition of satellite provider DirecTV , AT&T announced plans for

75-539: A spin-out , or starburst or hive-off , is a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" a section as a separate business or creates a second incarnation, even if the first is still active. It is distinct from a sell-off, where a company sells a section to another company or firm in exchange for cash or securities. Spin-offs are divisions of companies or organizations that then become independent businesses with assets, employees, intellectual property , technology , or existing products that are taken from

100-415: A customer's needs. AT&T CFO John Stephens had also previously stated that DirecTV's larger subscriber base as a national service gave the service a higher degree of leverage in negotiating carriage deals, thus resulting in lower content costs. On May 16, 2016, AT&T acquired Quickplay Media, a cloud-based platform that powers over-the-top video services. On September 19, 2016, AT&T announced that

125-522: A new "home entertainment gateway" platform that will converge DirecTV and U-verse around a common platform based upon DirecTV hardware with "very thin hardware profiles". AT&T Entertainment and Internet Services CEO John Stankey explained that the new platform would offer "single truck roll installation for multiple products, live local streaming, improved content portability, over-the-top integration for mobile broadband, and user interface re-engineering." In February 2016, Bloomberg reported that AT&T

150-453: A new environment. Spin-offs also allow high-growth divisions, once separated from other low-growth divisions, to command higher valuation multiples. In most cases, the parent company or organization offers support doing one or more of the following: All the support from the parent company is provided with the explicit purpose of helping the spin-off grow. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission 's (SEC) definition of "spin-off"

175-412: A program which has been recorded to their DVR. The legality of this service, for which an extra fee can be assessed, has been challenged by television broadcasters, who assert that this form of time shifting is a violation of their copyright. A study published in 2019 found that time shifting does not affect the size of the audience for a program which watches it live. Time shifting did, however, increase

200-442: A remote. The idea of a consumer pausing a live television broadcast was depicted in popular media as early as November 1966 at the end of Season 2, Episode 12 of I Dream of Jeannie , when character Major Nelson asked his genie to pause a live broadcast of a football game so that they could continue to watch it from that point after a grocery shopping trip. With the advent of digital video recorders ReplayTV and TiVo , launched at

225-665: Is also a term used by Timeshifter in the context of circadian science to describe the intentional adjustment of a person’s internal body clock. By modifying exposure to light, "circadian timeshifting" helps individuals: Freesat+ , Freeview+ , Sky+ , V+ , TiVo , YouView and BT Vision services in Ireland and the UK allow one to timeshift. DStv , based in South Africa , offers PVR set-top boxes to countries across Africa which allow time shifting of live and recorded television, using

250-460: Is more precise. Spin-offs occur when the equity owners of the parent company receive equity stakes in the newly spun off company. For example, when Agilent Technologies was spun off from Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1999, the stockholders of HP received Agilent stock. A company not considered a spin-off in the SEC's definition (but considered by the SEC as a technology transfer or licensing of technology to

275-510: Is now called Treasury Wine Estates . According to The Economist , another driving force of the proliferation of spin-offs is what it calls the " conglomerate discount " — that "stockmarkets value a diversified group at less than the sum of its parts". Some examples of spin-offs (according to the SEC definition): Examples following the second definition of spin-out: An example of companies created by technology transfer or licensing: Time shifting In broadcasting, time shifting

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300-474: Is the recording of programming to a storage medium to be viewed or listened to after the live broadcasting. Typically, this refers to TV programming but it can also refer to radio shows via podcasts . In recent years, the advent of the digital video recorder (DVR) has made time shifting easier, by using an electronic program guide (EPG) and recording shows onto a hard disk. Some DVRs have other possible time-shifting methods, such as being able to start watching

325-777: The Ericsson Mediaroom platform to deliver U-verse TV via IPTV from the headend to the consumer's receiver , required for each TV. Transmissions use digital H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) encoding, compared to the existing deployments of MPEG-2 codec and the discontinued analog cable TV system . The receiver box does not have a RF tuner , but is an IP multicast client that requests the channel or "stream" desired. U-Verse TV supports up to four/six active streams at once, depending on service tier. The system uses individual unicasts for video on demand , central time shifting , start-over services and other programs. Corporate spin-off A corporate spin-off , also known as

350-431: The parent company . Shareholders of the parent company receive equivalent shares in the new company in order to compensate for the loss of equity in the original stocks . However, shareholders may then buy and sell stocks from either company independently; this potentially makes investment in the companies more attractive, as potential share purchasers can invest narrowly in the portion of the business they think will have

375-552: The "U-verse" brand would no longer apply to its broadband and phone services, renaming them "AT&T Internet" and "AT&T Phone", respectively. In selected markets, AT&T began to replace AT&T U-verse TV with a new service based on its DirecTV Now platform, AT&T TV , in August 2019. On April 3, 2020, AT&T began announcing that U-verse would no longer be available to new customers. New customers ended up receiving AT&T TV for TV service. However, by September 2020 AT&T spokesman Ryan Oliver, when asked if AT&T

400-506: The 1999 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada , it became possible in practice for consumers to purchase devices that supported pausing live television broadcasts and "chase play" (playing back a delayed version of a recorded live stream while simultaneously continuing to record the live stream). The major legal issue involved in time shifting concerns "fair use" law and the possibility of copyright infringement. This legal issue

425-706: The copyright holder and would not contribute to a diminished marketplace for its product. RCA mentioned time shifting in its marketing as a reason to buy VCRs, even while an on-screen disclaimer mentioned the Betamax case and cautioned that "Such recordings should not be made". By 1985 cable movie channels encouraged time shifting by broadcasting films subscribers wanted for their home libraries overnight, so their VCRs could record them while they slept. Some providers, such as satellite TV companies, have introduced digital video recorder (DVR) features, thereby allowing consumers to skip over advertising entirely when watching

450-414: The main reasons for what The Economist has dubbed the 2011 "starburst revival" is that "companies seeking buyers for parts of their business are not getting good offers from other firms, or from private equity". For example, Foster's Group , an Australian beverage company, was prepared to sell its wine business. However, due to the lack of a decent offer, it decided to spin off the wine business, which

475-520: The most growth. In contrast, divestment can also sever one business from another, but the assets are sold off rather than retained under a renamed corporate entity. Many times, the management team of the new company are from the same parent organization. Often, a spin-off offers the opportunity for a division to be backed by the company but not be affected by the parent company's image or history, giving potential to take existing ideas that had been languishing in an old environment and help them grow in

500-478: The new company) may also be called a spin-off in common usage. A second definition of a spin-out is a firm formed when an employee or group of employees leaves an existing entity to form an independent start-up firm. The prior employer can be a firm, a university, or another organization. Spin-outs typically operate at arm's length from the previous organizations and have independent sources of financing, products, services, customers, and other assets. In some cases,

525-684: The recorded show from the beginning even if the recording is not yet complete. In the past, time shifting was done with a video cassette recorder (VCR) and its timer function, in which the VCR tunes into the appropriate station and records the show onto video tape. Certain broadcasters transmit timeshifted versions of their channels, usually carrying programming from one hour in the past, to enable those without recording abilities to resolve conflicts and those with recording abilities more flexibility in scheduling conflicting recordings. (See timeshift channel .) Beyond its application in broadcasting, “timeshifting”

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550-407: The spin-out may license technology from the parent or supply the parent with products or services; conversely, they may become competitors. Such spin-outs are important sources of technological diffusion in high-tech industries. Terms such as hive-up, hive down or hive across are sometime used for transferring a business to a parent company, a subsidiary company or a fellow subsidiary. One of

575-482: Was first raised in the landmark court case of Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. or the "Betamax case". In the 1970s, Universal and Disney sued Sony, claiming its timed recording capability amounted to copyright infringement . The Supreme Court of the United States found in favor of Sony; the majority decision held that time shifting was a fair use , represented no substantial harm to

600-519: Was in the process of phasing out the U-verse IPTV service by encouraging new customers to purchase DirecTV satellite service instead, and by ending the production of new set-top boxes for the service. An AT&T spokesperson denied that U-verse was being shut down and explained that the company was "leading its video marketing approach with DirecTV" to "realize the many benefits" of the purchase, but would still recommend U-verse TV if it better-suited

625-437: Was still selling U-verse, said that “U-verse is available in select locations,” and "AT&T never stopped selling U-verse", even though an AT&T customer attempted to order U-verse, but ended up receiving 2 boxes of AT&T TV instead. On August 2, 2021, the spin off of DirecTV , AT&T TV and U-verse was completed. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of DirecTV, with AT&T TV becoming DirecTV Stream. AT&T used

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