A class action suit has been filed alleging that AT&T pumped up the sub count for its DirecTV Now streaming service (since rebranded to AT&T TV Now) to mask “serious technical problems due to premature roll-out.”
The multi-year deal, which covers DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse, ends a nearly two-month impasse. Terms were not disclosed.
CBS Corp. and AT&T renewed their contract on Thursday, ending a 20 day-long blackout that began when the companies’ previous, seven-year deal expired at 2:00 a.m. ET on July 19.
Later this summer, AT&T will retire the name of the over-the-top TV service, first launched in December 2016, which will be rebranded “AT&T TV Now.” The change comes as the telco plans to launch test pilots in select markets of a new internet-streaming TV service called AT&T TV. Both the AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now services will be accessed through the same AT&T TV app on either mobile devices or connected TVs.
The company, which is engaged in retrans war with broadcasters, posted a net loss of 778,000 “premium video” subscribers, most of whom subscribe to DirecTV, and shed 168,000 streaming DirecTV Now accounts. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson earlier this year told investors the company expects to keep losing pay-TV customers through 2019 as it cut backs on promotions.
Exclusives
DirecTV Now Loses Nearly 20% Of Subs
DirecTV Now, AT&T’s streaming video app, has seen sharp customer declines in recent months that all but wiped out a year’s worth of subscriber growth, according to the company’s latest earnings report.
Streaming TV providers like YouTube TV, DirecTV Now and Hulu with Live TV lured users with digital “skinny bundles” that were cheaper than cable. Now, many are raising prices. The latest is Google’s YouTube TV, whose price just shot up to $50.
DirecTV Now used to start at $40 a month. The cheapest for new customers will now be $50. Packages will now include the AT&T-owned HBO, but the service is dropping some popular lifestyle and entertainment networks not owned by AT&T, including HGTV, Discovery, Food Network and MTV.
Watching popular TV shows such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones has become so easy online that millions are not only logging in to a plethora of new services, they’re also paying for it — including 2.2 million subscribers at Sling TV, parent Dish Network revealed for the first time Wednesday.
AT&T’s CEO touted the upcoming next-generation version of DirecTV Now, set to debut this spring, as a way to open up a new market for the vMVPD service. “With new functionality, we think we can get higher penetration,” Randall Stephenson said during the company’s 4Q earnings call Wednesday. “We’re actually very bullish on DirecTV Now. We’re convinced the economics will continue to improve as we move over the next couple of years.”
DirecTV Now has experienced frequent buffering and widespread outages for several consecutive nights, according to the service’s Twitter customer help page, and user comments at social media sites.
A year after it launched, AT&T’s Internet-delivered skinny TV bundle DirecTV Now has officially reached 1 million subscribers.
In the last 10 quarters, or 30 months, U-verse has lost 2.254 million net video subscribers. AT&T had indicated that it was converting U-verse customers to its DBS service, which has far lower wholesale programming costs, though it has also moved some U-verse subscribers to the DirecTV Now service as well.
DirecTV Now, the AT&T-owned live streaming service which has experienced recurring technical issues since its debut, suffered another major meltdown last night while viewers were watching Sunday Night Football and other primetime programming.
DirecTV Now says the price for the CBS-owned channel is “the lowest monthly rate” of any of its online rivals. It also says it has added CBS and CW local channels in 75 markets.
DirecTV Now has started adding local CBS affiliates, just in time for the first slate of National Football League games on Sunday. AT&T, which owns the live streaming service, announced last month that it had struck a deal with CBS to offer its local affiliates in 25 markets as well as the CBS-owned Showtime, CBS Sports Network, Pop and the CW. However, the telco did not reveal a launch date at the time of the announcement.
The new agreement deal will bring CBS-owned TV stations, Showtime, the CW and Pop to the DirecTV Now streaming service. Financial terms of the pact were not disclosed.
The AT&T streaming service continues to bring on affiliates of ABC, NBC and Fox, but still none from CBS. Hang up seems to be inability of the network to come to terms with AT&T on blanket agreement for affils. By the end of August, AT&T says,“almost 70% of U.S. TV households” will have at least one local TV station available on DirecTV Now.
AT&T’s DirecTV Now has reversed its plan to restrict use on computers and laptops to the Google Chrome browser, and will support Apple’s Safari browser as well.
The two cable MSOs have rolled out ad campaigns/promotions targeting DirecTV’s DBS service and its DirecTV Now online video service.
DirecTV Now, AT&T’s over-the-top pay TV service, is adding more than 35 stations affiliated with ABC, NBC and Fox starting next week — more than doubling its local broadcast footprint since launching last November and boosting local coverage to 70% of U.S. households. But CBS remains entirely absent from the DirecTV Now lineup.
Roku today announced that DirecTV Now has been added to several of its streaming devices, two months after the companies’ initial deadline. DirecTV Now and Roku promised last November that the live streaming service would be added to Roku by the end of the first quarter. But they missed the deadline for reasons that were never officially explained.
AT&T’s live online video service, DirecTV Now, has seen its growth stall in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter, raising questions about consumer demand for the growing number of new web-TV services entering the market.
Everyone in the tech industry wants your eyeballs. More specifically, a growing number of tech companies want to attract the millions who have ditched cable for services that stream live TV channels over the internet. To help you see which, if any, make sense for you, Business Insider has broken down the big five live-TV streaming services you can choose from today: PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV.
AT&T’s streaming service has added14 Fox affiliates owned by Tribune Media. Counting the Fox O&Os, local Fox stations can now be seen via DirecTV Now in 31 markets.
By now, it’s crystal-clear that DirecTV Now will not keep its promise that it would be available on Roku’s streaming devices in the first quarter. And while the live streaming service is available on Apple TV, Amazon’s Fire TV, smart phones, tablets and other platforms, Roku’s absence, and the missed deadline, has DirecTV Now customers (and potential customers) hopping mad, according to social media activity.
Looking to soon own HBO outright, AT&T is already leveraging the premium network in a very aggressive way, offering customers who sign up for the higher tiers of its virtual MVPD service a free year of the network.
YouTube announced its long-rumored YouTube TV service last week, plunging the online video platform into the competitive world of live TV streaming. The biggest challengers — DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue and Sling TV — offer many similar features to YouTube TV, and that will undoubtedly make it difficult for aspiring cord-cutters to know if they should wait for YouTube’s service or take the plunge now. Here’s a breakdown of these four streaming services.
DIirecTV Now, the live streaming service from AT&T,was hit with another outage on Sunday morning with dozens of channels blacked out. Since its debut on Nov. 30, 2016, DirecTV Now has been riddled with errors, and at least four major outages that blacked out the entire service. This outage now makes five.
