DirecTV shareholders approved the $48.5 billion sale of the company to AT&T Inc. today, with 77.8 percent voting in favor of the deal.

DirecTV announced the voting results at a shareholder meeting in New York, and Chief Executive Officer Mike White told investors there that he expects the deal to close in early April. The transaction, which was announced in May, is still under review by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.

The deal would combine the nation’s largest satellite-TV company with AT&T’s existing packages of wireless, phone and high-speed Internet service.

A group of state attorneys general recently decided to probe whether the takeover violates antitrust laws, adding to the work they were already doing with the Justice Department on a review of Comcast Corp.’s purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc.