Just checked pricing again for DirecTV vs. AT&T TV vs. Comcast.
New subscribers to DTV's Choice package (which is the cheapest one with RSNs), with the "All Included" option that includes one HD DVR rental, will pay $70/mo plus the $10/mo RSN fee (so $80/mo) in the first year but then it jumps to a regular price of $132/mo ($122 + $10) thereafter. (DTV's regular pricing is just not competitive, which is why so many customers are bailing and/or getting loyalty discounts to stay.) And of course they require a 2-yr contract. Prices are $5/mo higher if you don't do autopay. With autopay, you're paying an average of $106/mo (plus government taxes and fees) over the course of your first 24 months. Although you do get free HBO Max and free NFL Sunday Ticket the first year and it looks like they're now offering a $50 Visa gift card for new online sign-ups. Spread out the value of the $50 gift card over the 24 months and you're down to an average monthly cost of about $104/mo.
Choice package on AT&T TV, without a contract, costs $85/mo flat (no additional RSN fee) but you pay another $10/mo for cloud DVR with unlimited storage and tuners (but with only 90-day retention). And if you want to buy one of their custom streaming boxes for the best user experience, that's another $5/mo for 24 months (or a single $120 up-front payment). So that comes out to $100/mo over the first 24 months (plus government taxes and fees), although you can cancel anytime and only be on the hook for the balance due on the streaming box (which is yours to keep or resell). They also throw in a free year of HBO Max but NFL Sunday Ticket (along with NFL Network and local PBS) isn't available on AT&T TV at all. Alternatively, if you took AT&T TV's optional 2-yr contract, you'd get all the above for an average monthly price of about $96/mo (plus taxes) during the first 24 months. But there's no gift card offered right now. So you save a measly $4/mo in exchange for making a 2-yr commitment.
AT&T TV's savings versus DirecTV is a little better, at $8/mo, but that amount may not be worth it if you're a big NFL fan (or regularly hold onto DVR recordings longer than 90 days) or care about DTV's live 4K HDR sports, which AT&T TV still lacks. You do save a lot on AT&T TV versus DirecTV when you compare their post-contract regular prices (Choice at $95 vs. $132) but for new sign-ups just looking at what they'll pay during the first two years (and who considers beyond that?), AT&T TV isn't all that much cheaper, despite the fact that its new customer acquisition/installation costs are WAY less than DirecTV's. This tells me that AT&T TV is being overly greedy and probably has a higher profit margin than DirecTV, at least during the first couple years. Because a Choice package customer will only pay $100 to $200 more in that period for DirecTV than AT&T TV (depending on whether they take the AT&T TV contract or not) but the cost of DirecTV equipment and pro installation alone has to be more than $200, never mind the cost of also throwing in a free season of NFL Sunday Ticket plus a few additional channels not available (yet, anyway) on AT&T TV.
Compare all that to Comcast, which is the nation's largest cable TV operator and the most common competitor in AT&T's wired network footprint. Around here, based on the regular, non-promo, non-contract Comcast pricing, adding their Extra cable TV package (which includes RSNs and is similar to DTV/AT&T TV's Choice) to their standalone broadband service increases your bill by $91.40/mo. That includes one X1 box rental (either HD or 4K HDR) plus DVR service (150 hrs. storage). All other Comcast-imposed fees (e.g. broadcast TV, RSN) are included in the $91.50 figure (but government taxes are not). Looks like a new customer signing up with Comcast right now and taking a 1-yr contract would pay a little less, $86.40/mo more to include Extra TV versus just getting standalone broadband. If you wanted Comcast's Extra TV package (as configured above) but as a standalone service (no internet), you'd pay a regular price of $101.40/mo from the start after the regular $10/mo autopay discount (with no contract or other discounts). But that figure is pretty pointless because you can't get AT&T TV without broadband and my guess is hardly anyone on DirecTV satellite foregoes broadband service if it's available where they live.
The upshot of all of this, to me, is that AT&T TV needs to cut their base prices by $5-10/mo. to be more competitive with Comcast for customers who want RSNs. (AT&T TV does give you a free year of HBO Max, valued at $15/mo, while Comcast only offers free Peacock Premium, valued at $5/mo.) For those who don't care about RSNs, well, cutting the price of the starter Entertainment tier (which does not offer a free year of HBO Max) from $70/mo down to $60 or $65 would put it on a better footing versus YouTube TV and Fubo TV, which both cost $65 and come with lots of DVR storage (which is an extra $10/mo on AT&T TV).
