The board started with both (and VOOM), but Dish has been a more colorful company with endless intrigue. Law suits involving most of the industry, retransmission disputes galore, endless product tangents, cowboy quotes from its founder, etc... Essentially Dish has always had a ton more news and rumor surrounding it and DIRECTV has been business as usual with a tight control on leaks and essentially not having much to talk about -- delivering content consistently with few disputes and rumors just is not as juicy to write about and seek out the internet for help...
Dish drops channels -- people flock to the internet to find out why... DIRECTV does not have a dispute, viewers keep viewing and do not search the internet for answers as to why the channel is still there...