There are two main direct broadcast satellite TV providers in the United States today: DirecTV and Dish Network.
About DirecTV
In 1991, PrimeStar became the first satellite service in America, but its competitor DirecTV, launched in 1994 by Hughes Electronics, eventually absorbed it. DirecTV has since become the largest satellite TV provider in the United States, with over 15 million customers as of the end of 2005.
DirecTV provides premium channels (such as HBO), nationwide turnaround channels (such as ESPN), and local programming (such as ABC). It also has several HDTV channels, showing about 900 hours of high definition content a week. In addition, DirecTV offers XM Satellite music channels, and some pay-per-view and video-on-demand services.
The company also provides digital video recorders (DVRs) to its customers its first DVR was licensed from the TiVo company, which brought pause-live-TV technology into the public eye, but DirecTV now uses the internally-developed XTV system. Its receivers also have a built-in parental control system, allowing parents to block certain channels, or shows with a certain rating, from being accessed without a...