SEC Seeks DirecTV Accounting Information

DirecTV Group Inc., the largest U.S. satellite television operator, said the Securities and Exchange Commission had asked for information related to how the company accounted for some transactions.

The SEC wants details on accounting for agreements forged with Pegasus Communications Corp., the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative and Thomson last year, DirecTV said in a regulatory filing late Friday.

The SEC also is investigating the $1.47-billion write-down of the company’s Spaceway satellites.

DirecTV, based in El Segundo, may be required to change the way it accounts for those transactions, which may increase its depreciation and amortization expenses, the company said in the filing.

“This is not an investigation; it’s a routine inquiry,” DirecTV spokesman Bob Marsocci said. “They had some general questions,” and “we’re providing them with the information they requested.”

Shares of DirecTV were unchanged at $16.10 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. The filing became available after U.S. markets closed.

DirecTV ended an agreement last year that gave the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative exclusive rights to market its service in some rural areas and in August acquired subscribers from the cooperative and Pegasus, which also had marketed DirecTV’s service under a contract with the cooperative.

The two acquisitions added about 1.4 million subscribers, boosting DirecTV’s customer count to 13.5 million at the end of the third quarter.

DirecTV wrote down the value of its Spaceway satellites after deciding to use two of them to provide customers with added high-definition TV programming, instead of Internet access, as originally planned. Accounting rules required DirecTV to consider writing down the satellites’ value after changing plans for their use, the company said in a regulatory filing in October.

Under Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which bought a controlling stake in DirecTV from General Motors Corp. in 2003, the company is adding TV programming and cutting back investments in other services as it tries to keep taking subscribers from cable TV.

Thomson of France, a provider of digital cable and satellite set-top boxes, in May agreed to pay about $400 million to DirecTV for its Hughes Network Systems set-top box manufacturing assets.