With Malone out of the picture, Murdoch can now drop News Corp.'s so-called poison pill policy that the company adopted as a takeover defense when Malone accumulated his stake two years ago. Analysts say DirecTV's competitive position won't change. Its CEO, Chase Carey, will stay in place, and its premium satellite TV service to 15.7 million subscribers will continue. Its capital structure, however, may shift. Liberty's ownership of DirecTV will loosen its financial policies, analysts say, allowing the company to take on large amounts of debt and return cash to shareholders through a dividend or stock buyback. In that scenario, the company's focus could shift to growing its cash flows instead of its subscriber base. Already, DirecTV has taken pains to tighten its credit policies to cut down on the number of high-risk customers who didn't pay their bills. It has focused on winning over deep-pocketed customers with its high-definition offerings and digital video recorders.