Legacy companies like DirecTV, along with its competitor Dish Media, continue to deal with their longtime “satellite” TV brand association.

For a while now, DirecTV has been making a renewed marketing effort for existing and new traditional minded consumers that they can buy a pay TV bundle from them -- without a satellite dish.

DirecTV has been doing this for a few months now with its “For the Birds” ad campaign, where two pigeons ruminate over how consumers can watch pay TV. 

In the campaign, with voices by Henry Winkler and Steve Buscemi, the characters were sad about the disappearance of the dishes themselves. Winkler’s character said that he “loved doing my business on those things.”

The campaign now will feature former NFL star and presently, college football coach Deion Sanders, joining the group in a new round of messages.

Good news. The campaign uses the DirecTV brand name to get tons of awareness for its DirecTV Stream service -- an internet-based, virtual pay TV platform, which started up in August 2021.

Still, few TV consumers know about the three-year-old service -- or worse. One bit of research shows consumers believe a satellite dish is still needed to get DirecTV Stream. So there is confusion.

Dish Media had a better start by creating a separate identity for its virtual pay TV business, Sling TV, now referred to just as Sling in TV commercials. It started up  in 2015 one of the first virtual pay TV providers, and some six years before DirecTV Stream launched.

Sling TV has almost 1.92 million subscribers, which is down slightly from a year ago. DirecTV has not disclosed the number of DirecTV Stream subscribers.

Until recently, virtual pay TV providers have seen strong growth across the board. But now just a handful are seeing rising subscribers, with YouTube TV at the top of the heap -- now at 8 million. Hulu+Live TV is next at 4.5 million.

Even with its softness, there are new entries trying to wedge their way into the virtual pay TV universe with niche linear TV channel bundles.

Venu Sports, a streaming sports-focused platform, comes via a joint venture launch from Walt Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp., to be launched later this month with 14 live sports channels and a $42.99 a month price tag.

Expect a big on-air marketing campaign to come -- all timed to launch with the new NFL season. 

That means hard-pressed TV consumers -- already looking to cut back on individual streaming platforms due to rising fees -- will be hit with new multiple on-air campaigns in the coming weeks for a virtual pay TV service, pulling them in another TV entertainment direction. 

Can they weed through all the complications and brand associations of the past and get some stable services for their everyday home entertainment needs?