DirecTV announced Monday it’s buying rival Dish Network, ending multiple decades of on-and-off talks about the satellite services merging.

In this era of cord cutting the announced merger of DirecTV with Dish/Sling would result in 18 million subscribers, making it the largest pay-TV distributor

DirecTV agreed to buy the Dish satellite TV and Sling TV business for a nominal fee of $1, in exchange for taking on $9.75 billion of Dish debt. But DirecTV's deal announcement on Monday said the merger needs approval from Dish debt holders, who would see their investments devalued.

The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, would create one of the largest pay-TV distributors in the U.S. The companies were blocked in an attempt to merge in 2002.

Credit ratings agency S&P Global notes the "linear TV industry is rapidly shrinking" and the increased scale provided by a merger may not offset subscriber declines.

DirecTV is buying Dish and Sling for $1 and the assumption of nearly $10 billion in debt, marking one of the biggest pay-TV mergers ever.

The debt restructuring plan would leave bondholders with nearly $1.6 billion of losses, after imposing haircuts as high as 40% of face value. Representatives at Dish and its advisers didn’t respond to messages.