DirecTV

The glitchy, twitchy DirecTV Now streaming service has its early customers twisting in outrage, but Sarah Perez reports that owner AT&T has no plans to offer refunds as yet. What’s worse, beyond venting in online chat forums, “customers found the only way to get help was through a hard-to-find chat feature,” where refund talk is squashed by reps.

DirecTV Now’s $35 a month price for 100-plus channels — which some analysts thought was too good, or foolish, to be true — soon will be history. AT&T says that on Jan. 9 the introductory offer will expire, and the streaming service’s “Go Big” package will cost $60.

Dec. 31 is the deadline for a new contract between Cox Media Group’s stations and AT&T U-Verse and DirecTV.

DirecTV and Hearst Television are negotiating a renewal of the retransmission consent agreement for the carriage of Hearst broadcast stations on DirecTV’s systems. The current deal expires on Jan. 1.

AT&T is still working to reconcile the rights complexities of NFL football with the technological execution of DirecTV Now, with users of the virtual platform still complaining that they’re being improperly blacked out of local NFL games.

The NBA in 4K has finally arrived in the U.S. NBA TV and DirecTV delivered UHD coverage of two games, one on Nov. 22 and the other on Dec. 3, with Altitude Sports and Mobile TV Group producing both the HD and 4K feeds out of one truck.

Eager to deliver its  customers over-the-top video, CenturyLink is looking at becoming a reseller of DirecTV Now, the virtual MVPD service launched last week by telco rival AT&T.

Last week’s launch of DirecTV Now was plagued with errors, but AT&T says it’s thrilled with the early interest in its new streaming bundle offering. “The early demand has been rather dramatic … we’ve been pleased with it,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman, CEO and president, said this morning at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York

AT&T’s new live TV streaming service debuted Wednesday with a free seven-day trial and attractive $35 introductory price, but plenty of first-time users are experiencing trouble.

The new streaming service from AT&T that debuts on Wednesday will carry live the owned stations of ABC, NBC and Fox in their entirely within their markets as well as offer the networks’ primetime shows on demand the day after their initial airing. But deals aren’t in place yet to carry the networks’ affiliates. For the time being, subscribers in those markets will have to settle for watching network programs the day after on demand. AT&T exec John Stankey says he’s also working to bring the CBS stations on board, but could live without them.

It’s unclear if the new service, DirecTV Now, will break out with consumers. But it has the size to get better deals from entertainment companies, who have slowly come around to the idea of streaming. And if that doesn’t work, watch for a live-TV operation from Hulu early next year. And maybe one from Google. Or, who knows, maybe even Apple, too.

Next week, AT&T Inc. is leaping into online streaming with DirecTV Now, but it’s taking the plunge without CBS Corp., the most popular TV network and the lone holdout for the service among the top media companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

DirecTV Now has secured one of the final two major programming linchpins, ahead of its impending launch, with the virtual pay TV service signing a broad digital deal with 21st Century Fox. What isn’t clear: How will parent company AT&T handle broadcast networks during the initial phase of the IP-based platform’s launch?

Entertainment Studios’ cable networks Comedy.TV and JusticeCentral.TV will be available on the new streaming service, DirecTV Now, when it launches later this month. “We value our continued and expanding relationship with AT&T,” said Byron Allen, […]

Fox programming available to DirecTV Now customers will include: Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FX, FXX, FXM, FS 1, FS 2, Big Ten Network, 18 Fox regional sports networks, National Geographic and Nat Geo Wild. The parties have also agreed on a framework for Fox Broadcasting Co. programming to be delivered to DirecTV Now customers nationwide.

DirecTV customers nationwide were unable to watch eight high-definition channels on Friday due to “technical difficulties,” said AT&T, the parent company of the pay-TV provider. Those channels, which include CNN and Fox News, remained available in standard definition and via streaming apps.

AT&T has responded to a bombshell lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department accusing the conglomerate’s DirecTV unit of orchestrating an illegal campaign to block wide carriage of regional sports network SportsNet LA, home of the L.A. Dodgers. “We respect the DOJ’s important role in protecting consumers, but in this case, which occurred before AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV, we see the facts differently,” said David McAtee, AT&T general counsel.

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday took the extraordinary step of suing AT&T, alleging that its DirecTV unit orchestrated an illegal campaign to block wide carriage of SportsNet LA,  the regional sports channel owned by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Other then diverting money that might have gone to buying TV spectrum, the proposed AT&T merger should not have much impact on broadcasting. Of more concern is AT&T’s announcement on Tuesday that its DirecTV will offer a not-so-skinny bundle of more than 100 channels for $35 a month. That’s the challenge for broadcasters. They have to make sure they’re included in DirectTV Now at a fair price.

DirecTV Now, AT&T’s virtual pay TV package, was billed by executives as a cure for cord-cutting and an enticement for the cord-never crowd. Analysts initially estimated DirecTV Now would cost anywhere from $50 to $70 when it hit the market. On Monday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, while on the stump for his proposed $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, announced DirecTV Now’s package of Internet-delivered streaming channels will be offered for just $35 a month when it launches in November. What happened?

After striking out with the FCC in a carriage discrimination complaint against Comcast, Spanish-language broadcaster Liberman Broadcasting has struck a carriage deal with the No. 2 pay TV platform, DirecTV. The deal will put network Estrella TV on the program guides of more than 20 million satellite TV customers.

DirecTV has resolved its five-week-old dispute with Heartland Media and the broadcaster has returned its eight network affiliates to the satcaster’s lineup. Heartland removed the eight stations from DirecTV on Aug. 10 when the two companies could not reach a new carriage pact.

The new multi-year agreement means AT&T DirecTV and U-Verse customers will continue to have access to NBCU broadcast and cable networks live and on-demand through linear TV, online and TV Everywhere apps.

DirecTV subscribers can once again watch Forum Communications-owned ABC affiliates WDAY Fargo, N.D., and KBMY Minot-Bismarck, N.D., now that a signal carriage agreement has been reached,

DIRECTV’s now six-day-old dispute with Heartland Media could take some time to resolve, says one Heartland executive. Heartland removed eight network affiliates from the satcaster’s lineup on Aug. 10 when the two companies could not reach a new carriage pact. Jerry Jones, GM of WTVA, the Heartland-owned NBC affiliate in Tupelo, Miss., has posted a new notice on his station’s website saying “this looks like it’s going to be a very slow process.”

DirecTV during the second quarter added 342,000 subscribers, but the gain was offset by the loss of 391,000 subscribers at corporate sister AT&T U-verse.

In Boston, local NBC affiliates WHDH Channel 7 and WLVI Channel 56 went dark following a breakdown between station executives and AT&T-owned DirecTV on July 15th. In Miami, Fox affiliate WSVN Channel 7 was blacked out over a similar dispute. The stations are all owned by Sunbeam Television.

DirecTV lost Forum Communications’ stations WDAY, WDAZ and KBMY, ABC affiliates in Grand Forks, Fargo and Bismarck, N.D., respectively, Thursday as the NBA Finals got underway on the network that night.

In a bid to lure new customers and counter the ongoing threat of cord-cutting, the satellite service announced a deal to deliver up to 25 MLB Network games live in 4K Ultra UHD this season — the first time Major League Baseball games will be available to U.S. viewers in the format, which offers about four times the resolution of 1080p HD.

Is it time to stop calling DirecTV a satellite service? AT&T, which bought it last year, can make that case today as it unveils three DirecTV-related streamed video services it plans to offer nationwide around October. No details yet about programming or pricing. That makes it impossible to predict whether they’ll be compelling options for potential cable or satellite cord cutters, or millennials who don’t subscribe to traditional pay TV.

AT&T is phasing out the U-verse TV service as it pushes new customers to newly acquired DirecTV, a sign the company is giving up on once-heralded plans to compete head-on with cable through telephone lines. AT&T has stopped building U-verse set-top boxes and is nudging prospective customers toward its satellite unit, which has lower hardware and programming costs.