The future may be online, but satellite pay-TV company DirecTV isn’t exactly rushing to embrace that future with open arms. The CEO of DirecTV this week admitted that the company is investigating the option of starting their own streaming service, but he was less than enthusiastic about the idea, seeing it as unlikely to be profitable.

The news came from an earnings call with investors, Fierce Cable reports. In the call, DirecTV president and CEO Mike White framed over-the-top, streaming content as a poor choice for investors looking for growth.

“The margins are pretty thin on those packages,” White said. “It’s not clear to me that it’s a particularly profitable idea… It is something we are considering.”

Competitor Dish has made news this year with Sling TV, their $20 per month streaming offering, hoping perhaps to bring in money from cord-cutters who wouldn’t ever consider spending $50 – $150 on satellite TV service. DirecTV, however, is in no rush to emulate them.

DirecTV has been seeing recent growth in its traditional monthly subscription numbers, in large part bolstered by customers fleeing Dish after an embarrassing series of content blackouts. The company is also planning a merger with AT&T that would unite satellite TV service and AT&T’s phone and broadband offerings under one large corporate roof.

DirecTV has roughly 20 million subscribers and is the second-largest pay-TV company in the U.S., behind Comcast.

DirecTV’s White: OTT service is possible but not particularly profitable [Fierce Cable]

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