UPDATED: AT&T has thrown within the towel in attempting to compete for cord-cutters in search of an affordable TV bundle — an unsurprising transfer because the telco tries to shore up its struggling pay-TV enterprise.
In an replace on its web site this week, the telco mentioned it’s not promoting AT&T TV Now to new clients. “AT&T TV Now has merged with AT&T TV to deliver you one of the best stay and on-demand expertise!” a message on the telco’s website says. The AT&T TV broadband-delivered product, launched final spring, is priced and packaged extra like conventional cable and satellite tv for pc TV and is designed as a substitute for the steadily declining DirecTV satellite tv for pc service.
The phasing out of AT&T TV Now comes after years of shifting methods and a complicated mélange of promoting messaging. AT&T first launched the skinny-bundle service in December 2016, initially known as DirecTV Now, filled with 100-plus channels for an eye-popping intro value of $35 per 30 days. However the try to win cord-cutters backfired, as AT&T hiked the costs of the over-the-top bundle and the early adopters dropped the bundle in droves.
In a press release offered to Selection, AT&T SVP of promoting Vince Torres mentioned, “We’re bringing extra worth and ease by merging these two streaming companies right into a single AT&T TV expertise.”
An organization rep mentioned current AT&T TV Now clients will proceed to have entry to the outdated lineup of channels for a similar month-to-month value “and won’t expertise any disruptions as a part of this variation.”
AT&T TV Now most not too long ago was priced began at $55/month for 45-plus channels, and a tier together with HBO Max began at $80/month with greater than 60 channels. AT&T TV, designed round a purpose-built Android TV set-top, begins at month-to-month costs of $70, $85 and $95, and the highest two tiers embrace HBO Max for one yr at no additional price.
At its peak, DirecTV Now (later rebranded as AT&T TV Now) had 1.86 million within the third quarter of 2018. Over the following two years, it shed 63% of these, to stand at 683,000 on the finish of Sept. 30, 2020.
AT&T’s “premium TV” enterprise (which incorporates DirecTV and AT&T TV) has been in a downhill slide, too: As of the top of the third quarter of 2020, these totaled 17.1 million, down 590,000 sequentially and representing a lack of 3.3 million over the prior 12-month interval.
AT&T first launched DirecTV Now in late 2016. On the time, AT&T’s then-CEO Randall Stephenson had promised that the skinny-bundle technique would disrupt the pay-TV biz with revolutionary pricing, dramatically undercutting different TV suppliers. “[W]e are completely satisfied that that is going to be very, very engaging for a big group of consumers who actually aren’t even out there in the present day,” Stephenson informed traders in November 2016.
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