AT&T plans "tens of billions" in cost cuts, more layoffs

The reason they have a box is that it runs the Android TV Operators Tier. This lets AT&T TV be like DTV. Android TV Operators Tier is different than regular Android TV. I think the Operators Tier lets AT&T TV have channel numbers, trick play and automatically boots into the AT&T TV App and live TV.

 

What does that have to do with cost cuts?

 

They could save some money by stop sending me mail to get the wonderful AT&T high speed broadband that doesn't exist where I live.

 

They were talking about the UI that AT&T TV uses earlier in this thread.

 

Except that doesn’t have anything at all to do with cutting costs. The ATT box is designed specifically to help them self describe their new streaming service as “Premium”.

The problem is that at Now, Entertainment and Choice it isn’t significantly different in any meaningful way than YouTubeTV or Hulu+Live. Only for those wanting the Total or Ultimate levels does it even come close to making sense, and that only in the first year. There literally is no case to be made at all for the 2nd and subsequent year prices.

Just using Entertainment, the smartest plan a consumer could make would be, subscribe and at the end of the year, cancel and pay the ETF. That gets you the box and the content for $65/month, which makes more sense. The math for other levels is similar.

Using anything more than Entertainment, the differences become even more stark. Choice @$55/month first year, plus RSN fee of up to $8.50. Call it $63 all in. That gets you a channel selection similar to YTTV that sells for $50 that has no contract, no ETF and no guaranteed 2nd year nearly doubling.

So now we’re really back to the problem that was facing ATT with this service from the get go. It is designed to reduce the costs to ATT plain and simple. It is not designed to save the consumer anything at all and doesn’t unless you only compare it to their satellite offerings.

 

Powerful statement, well said!

Rich

 

AT&T really needs to come up with a new plan, They are still playing from the early 2000's playbook while other companies are giving you a lot more value for your $$.

 

Wouldn't you think they'd see that? Can they really be that stupid?

Rich

 

You would think so but I know business people with small stores that fall into that same trap. I watch as they lose business and then they seem to think increasing the markup is the solution. At some point you try to explain this to them, but they just seem to be focused in on the weekly income. Then at some point the place is a ghost town and soon after it goes out of business. You would expect a large company like ATT to have advisors to get them out of that same rut, but they seem to be stuck in it just like the little guys.

 

It's madness, the more they spend, the more they get in debt, the more the executives make.
It's all about appearances, there is a lot of deceit, personal opinion of course.

WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey's Salary Jumps to $16.55 Million

 

Works the same when the bigwigs drive a company to bankruptcy. Little guys/gals get shown the door with a ‘sorry about that’, bigwigs don’t leave until they milk the last big pile of money out of what’s left.

 

I worked for a large corporation, all the "advisers" we had were busy blowing smoke into unmentionable places...I watched that corporation disappear.

Rich

 

So the new AT & T offering is that for rural customer Service?

I only have 15 meg of Internet.

 

Looks like AT&T's changing gears with the pandemic its canceled all stock buyback plans including the already announced $4 billion second quarter plan in order to keep that cash to invest in their network and employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

AT&T Warns Coronavirus Financial Impact ‘Could Be Material,’ Nixes $4 Billion Stock-Buyback Plan

 

That's good, the only companies who should consider keeping their buybacks going are ones like Apple or Microsoft who have so much cash the buybacks they do hardly make a dent.

I wonder if AT&T will be in line with their hands out looking for a bailout like the airlines, trying to blame coronavirus on their woes and not accepting that taking on giant debt buying Directv and then Warner is most of the reason no matter how bad things may get in the next few months.

 

I would think Directv's satellite service fits your needs much more than a streaming site.

Rich

 

Well sure, but a company that's returning capital to shareholders via buybacks while it is currently carrying $170 billion in debt (or whatever, I don't have current figures) is clearly not preparing for ANY black swan type events.

This is why I really like the idea of barring any company that accepts government bailouts from every buying back stock again, and there should also be restrictions on paying dividends to not allow instituting or increasing dividends so long as the company has net debt on the books. Airlines have bought back tens of billions in stock in the last few years, and now think they deserve a $50 billion bailout. Had they been more responsible and saved for a rainy day (or at least managed their affairs well enough they had a line of credit of sufficient size they could draw on to cover this) they would not be in this position, so I guess the government has to impose limits on them they are too selfish to impose on themselves.

Any travel related business should have accepted this long ago as maybe they didn't have a pandemic on their radar screens, but they certainly should have had terrorism on their radar screen and it could easily have similar effect.

A company like AT&T really shouldn't see all that much impact - people are still using cell phones and internet. Hell they are using them more than before, they are probably getting calls for people who want to spend MORE on their plans now. People aren't likely to cancel their TV while they are stuck at home, though they may cancel it afterwards if the bills start piling up. Still, Directv is not that large a part of AT&T's overall business, and they've continued to buy back stock while Directv is losing millions of subscribers so they couldn't argue losing another few million would have a major impact.

They may be seeing some impact from commercial customers like me who are shut down and suspended their Directv service. Or at least they would if more of them knew it was possible. I wouldn't have known to call if I didn't read this forum where people mention it all the time, I just didn't know for sure a commercial customer could do it until I called in a couple days ago to try.

 

True, but the alternative is to cut them off, terminate their agreements, and hope to collect ETFs. If they keep them around, and charge them, there is a possibility to recovery funds with interest over time.


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