I’m surprised there are only 11 million DIRECTV subscribers.
they’re going to break at some point soon.
The issue is that their subscriber base is quite "sticky", by which I should say "rural without adequate broadband / cable access". A lot of these folks just don't have other options.
Dish expanded beyond this years ago with SlingTV. They realized that in urban areas they were fighting an uphill battle. Many residential SFH owners didn't want a satellite dish hanging off their house, and many renters weren't allowed to have one. But in those areas broadband flourished, and they already had content deals in place, so they were the pioneer of streaming live TV. I think they're still trying to survive as the cost leader, but with a smaller channel package than Hulu/YouTube.
DirecTV has tried to do this, under the DirecTV Now name, then AT&T TV (when owned by AT&T), and now DirecTV Stream after being spun out of AT&T. I think they were too little and too late, and the constant churn of naming/ownership probably doesn't help them relative to Hulu, YouTube, and Sling.
But as long as they're the sole provider to rural areas without adequate broadband service, they've got a captive market. They already invested the CapEx to put satellites into space, so it's not like they have to run new cable or fiber to the backwoods to deliver TV.
