....and so it begins.....announced today.......they are rolling into 'AT&T TV' so no new subscribers for 'AT&T Now'.....for now, no change for existing 'AT&T Now' subscribers.....but we know that they will eventually get rid of it altogether......


AT&T Is Killing Off AT&T TV Now, Its Skinny-Bundle Television Package

.....AT&T has thrown in the towel in trying to compete for cord-cutters looking for a cheap TV bundle — an unsurprising move as the telco tries to shore up its struggling pay-TV business.

In an update on its website this week, the telco said it is no longer selling AT&T TV Now to new customers. “AT&T TV Now has merged with AT&T TV to bring you the best live and on-demand experience!” a message on the telco’s site says. The AT&T TV broadband-delivered product, introduced last spring, is priced and packaged more like traditional cable and satellite TV and is designed as a replacement for the steadily declining DirecTV satellite service.

The phasing out of AT&T TV Now comes after years of shifting strategies and a confusing mélange of marketing messaging. AT&T first launched the skinny-bundle service in December 2016, originally called DirecTV Now, stuffed with 100-plus channels for an eye-popping intro price of $35 per month. But the attempt to win cord-cutters backfired, as AT&T hiked the prices of the over-the-top package and the early adopters dropped the package in droves.

AT&T TV Now most recently was priced started at $55/month for 45-plus channels, and a tier including HBO Max started at $80/month with more than 60 channels. The company said existing AT&T TV Now customers will continue to have access to the service, for now. AT&T TV, designed around a purpose-built Android TV set-top, starts at monthly prices of $70, $85 and $95, and the top two tiers include HBO Max for one year at no extra cost.

An AT&T rep didn’t respond to a request for more info on on the change.

At its peak, DirecTV Now (later rebranded as AT&T TV Now) had 1.86 million in the third quarter of 2018. Over the next two years, it shed 63% of those, to stand at 683,000 at the end of Sept. 30, 2020.

AT&T’s “premium TV” business (which includes DirecTV and AT&T TV) has been in a downhill slide, too: As of the end of the third quarter of 2020, those totaled 17.1 million, down 590,000 sequentially and representing a loss of 3.3 million over the prior 12-month period.

AT&T first launched DirecTV Now in late 2016. At the time, AT&T’s then-CEO Randall Stephenson had promised that the skinny-bundle strategy would disrupt the pay-TV biz with revolutionary pricing, dramatically undercutting other TV providers. “[W]e are absolutely convinced that this is going to be very, very attractive for a large group of customers who really aren’t even in the market today,” Stephenson told investors in November 2016.


the beginning.....of the end......?!

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2021 10:15AM by NewtonMP2100.

It's such a terrible company. And the sad thing is, Comcast is even worse.

All they had to do was spend money to expand infrastructure and actually compete against Crapcast.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

It was a tough past year finding people willing to spend lots of time indoors to view their service. Just bad timing. /s

Quote
NewtonMP2100
....and so it begins.....announced today.......they are rolling into 'AT&T TV' so no new subscribers for 'AT&T Now'.....for now, no change for existing 'AT&T Now' subscribers.....but we know that they will eventually get rid of it altogether......


AT&T Is Killing Off AT&T TV Now, Its Skinny-Bundle Television Package

.....AT&T has thrown in the towel in trying to compete for cord-cutters looking for a cheap TV bundle — an unsurprising move as the telco tries to shore up its struggling pay-TV business.

In an update on its website this week, the telco said it is no longer selling AT&T TV Now to new customers. “AT&T TV Now has merged with AT&T TV to bring you the best live and on-demand experience!” a message on the telco’s site says. The AT&T TV broadband-delivered product, introduced last spring, is priced and packaged more like traditional cable and satellite TV and is designed as a replacement for the steadily declining DirecTV satellite service.

The phasing out of AT&T TV Now comes after years of shifting strategies and a confusing mélange of marketing messaging. AT&T first launched the skinny-bundle service in December 2016, originally called DirecTV Now, stuffed with 100-plus channels for an eye-popping intro price of $35 per month. But the attempt to win cord-cutters backfired, as AT&T hiked the prices of the over-the-top package and the early adopters dropped the package in droves.

AT&T TV Now most recently was priced started at $55/month for 45-plus channels, and a tier including HBO Max started at $80/month with more than 60 channels. The company said existing AT&T TV Now customers will continue to have access to the service, for now. AT&T TV, designed around a purpose-built Android TV set-top, starts at monthly prices of $70, $85 and $95, and the top two tiers include HBO Max for one year at no extra cost.

An AT&T rep didn’t respond to a request for more info on on the change.

At its peak, DirecTV Now (later rebranded as AT&T TV Now) had 1.86 million in the third quarter of 2018. Over the next two years, it shed 63% of those, to stand at 683,000 at the end of Sept. 30, 2020.

AT&T’s “premium TV” business (which includes DirecTV and AT&T TV) has been in a downhill slide, too: As of the end of the third quarter of 2020, those totaled 17.1 million, down 590,000 sequentially and representing a loss of 3.3 million over the prior 12-month period.

AT&T first launched DirecTV Now in late 2016. At the time, AT&T’s then-CEO Randall Stephenson had promised that the skinny-bundle strategy would disrupt the pay-TV biz with revolutionary pricing, dramatically undercutting other TV providers. “[W]e are absolutely convinced that this is going to be very, very attractive for a large group of customers who really aren’t even in the market today,” Stephenson told investors in November 2016.


the beginning.....of the end......?!

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

It was good while it lasted.

I've been thinking about dumping AT&T TV Now for a while now. I still get HBO for just $5 more than my base sub price, which is probably the main reason I haven't dumped it already. I do enjoy a few other channels, but not so much that it makes sense to pay $55/mo to get them.

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It is what it is.

As far as I'm concerned, they're ALL rip offs.

I have that old grandfathered plan, which was what, $35 when it started, $40 with HBO and now is almost $70 with taxes included.

I just quit this past weekend. Got tired of paying $60/month for something that our family didn't really use that often. When we got it, when it was $35-$40/month it was a decent deal, especially with the free 4k Apple TV, but no more. We still get to use it until the monthly renewal date.

What was really nice was that I was able to quit online, I didn't have to endure a phone bank salesperson trying to convince me to stay.

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The arts are not luxuries but assets that give way more than they cost.
--Ronald Tucker on YouTube

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.
--Frank Zappa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2021 04:47AM by Sam3.

Quote
Sam3
What was really nice was that I was able to quit online, I didn't have to endure a phone bank salesperson trying to convince me to stay.

That was about the only thing they got right, the online subscription and cancellation.

I was a fairly early adopter, it worked okay and the price was right. But I quit after they started the frequent price increases. As someone who signed up under the DirecTV Now plan I still got most of the channels, but some of the ones not available to new subscribers could be difficult to keep using. And their DVR bit while much improved over the beta still had many glitches.