No surprise.

 

Maybe now the discount mongers will believe what I have said many times. The discount well isn't bottomless.

 

It is an arms length business transaction. Is Directv a "monger" when they seek the best deal on programming, equipment, satellites etc? There is absolutely zero difference.

Customers are free to seek the best deal they can, Directv is free to let them walk. AT&T's biggest problem is the number of cheaper alternatives and the fact that the generation that are teens now, do not watch linear TV. AT&T's video service is in big trouble.

 

Buy DISH network stock then guys. I already am switching and others will also. I see DISH numbers going up next year

 

Dish gaining cheapskate subscribers doesn't mean their stock will be a better investment, nor would Directv losing them make AT&T's stock go down. AT&T reported almost the same free cash flow ($4 billion a year) in the most recent fiscal year as they made in the first year after they bought Directv, despite having a few million fewer subscribers. They "heavily discounted" subscribers were costing them money, so it makes sense to get rid of them.

The days of providers caring more about high subscriber numbers and not caring if some of them cost them money are over.

 

I take it - without sounding political. Our country does not like " cheepo's or cheapskates!” yup Uh huh....

 

The company is working toward moving those customers away from discounted plans and migrate customers to more profitable services.

What are they classifying as "heavily discounted plans"? I've got a whopping $20 per month discount and still paying $230 per month for Premier with 7 receivers. Premier is going up $8 bucks a month in January and the RSN fee is increasing by $1.50 which will put me at $239.50 per month. And when that whopping $20 per month comes off next October I'll be at $259.50 per month. Which just happens to be when my contract is up so they will get their wish and get rid of this freeloader. We'll see how their more profitable services fare when they have no customers.

 

If you're paying $230/month I'm sure they love you, and you could probably get bigger discounts to stay since I have to think they'll still be profitable even if they were giving you $40 or $50 off.

 

I had the lowest package from DirecTV for the last several years and managed to wrangle some discounts. But, when I moved to Texas at the beginning of the year and cancelled service, I said I was moving into a small apartment and did not have access to a common area. While my home has a DirecTV dish, it is essentially a roof ornament. My mother, however, missed her Hallmark channel, so we have DirecTV Now (now AT&T Now), but at least she is picking up the tab.

My frustration with DirecTV started before the July, 2015 acquisition by AT&T. And, to be honest, it's really not the DirecTV that I'm blaming, but the program content providers who have kept increasing the costs of the content that I wasn't watching. The DirecTV Select package didn't include the E$PN or the Regional $ports Networks, but there were other channels that, in my opinion, were worth skipping. And, It feels like the multichannel providers and the content providers have been in more disputes this year than in previous years, causing channels to be blacked out for weeks at a time or longer.

I'm starting to wonder if television as distributed through traditional linear channels is dying a slow, painful death.

 

I had the lowest package from DirecTV for the last several years and managed to wrangle some discounts. But, when I moved to Texas at the beginning of the year and cancelled service, I said I was moving into a small apartment and did not have access to a common area. While my home has a DirecTV dish, it is essentially a roof ornament. My mother, however, missed her Hallmark channel, so we have DirecTV Now (now AT&T Now), but at least she is picking up the tab.

My frustration with DirecTV started before the July, 2015 acquisition by AT&T. And, to be honest, it's really not the DirecTV that I'm blaming, but the program content providers who have kept increasing the costs of the content that I wasn't watching. The DirecTV Select package didn't include the E$PN or the Regional $ports Networks, but there were other channels that, in my opinion, were worth skipping. And, It feels like the multichannel providers and the content providers have been in more disputes this year than in previous years, causing channels to be blacked out for weeks at a time or longer.

I'm starting to wonder if television as distributed through traditional linear channels is dying a slow, painful death.

If the Hallmark Channel is the sticking point, have you considered Philo as an alternative. The current price is $20, I'm still grandfathered at $14, which it was when I signed up. I also includes the three Hallmark channels; Hallmark, Hallmark Movies and Mysteries and Hallmark Drama. I originally had DirecTV Now and two price increases in less than a year made it look less appealing. Philo includes an unlimited DVR, however it only saves the program for 30 days. That's still better than the 20 hour 30 day DVR with DirecTV Now.

 

And that's why they lt me walk after being with them since 2000. Was paying almost half price for 2 years with discounts and never been a sub pay $200+ a month.
Always one step down from top package and sports. 2 TVs max.

Oh well.....

 

As a former Directv subscriber, and someone who grew up with Directv through most of their upbringing, I get the attachment that people have to the service. Regardless whether this report is fully accurate or not, we're all seeing changes in this company. I was sad when I left a few months ago, but I'm just here to tell you, gang...the other side of the provider fence (or, gahhh....streaming! Oh no!) isn't so bad. Dip you toes in the water, give it all a chance. You'll be pleasantly surprised. Or at least I hope you'll be.

 

The article seems to be talking about "discounted plans" not "discounts." My read is that they want to move customers away from the Select and Entertainment packages and into Choice and above.

No?

They can always just stop giving out discounts and see if people walk (which they may) but I feel like that is different than moving people away from discounted plans.

 

Maybe I'm wrong but I still expect to see a revamped set of channel packages sold across both DirecTV and the new AT&T TV come next year (when AT&T TV becomes available nationwide). AT&T renegotiated and renewed several major channel carriage contracts this year and those new contracts span all of their services now. And the AT&T CEO has spoken more than once in the past year or two about the need to "thin out" their content packages and bring the costs down. So while I'm sure all of the existing channel packages (Entertainment, Choice, Xtra, etc.) would be grandfathered in and remain available to their current subscribers (but with the usual annual price hike for 2020), I think it's possible that they'll no longer be sold to new customers or even to existing customers who want to switch over to them from a different grandfathered package.

I also expect that all the new channel packages they sell will automatically include the new HBO Max service that will launch in May. Going forward, I don't think AT&T wants to initiate any new TV/video account that doesn't include HBO Max.

 

ALL providers are increasing prices, because the greedy channel owner always want more and "give" you less. Also local channels are making a killing too! Politicians let them use public airways to deliver there content. And less not forget the sports channels, no matter who you get them from have to pay the players out of this world million+ pay increases too. I get locals only for news and network programming. Don't need or wanted news channels that have talk shows on 50% of the time or sports either or greedy Disney, cartoons, romancing Hallmark channels or women oriented channels with more commericals and yearly price increases. Sorry for the rant just my two cents.

 

I think it's just a matter of time until Dish and DirecTV merge as more and more customers jump to streaming alternatives. Same thing happened to XM and Sirius satellite radio.

 

There has to be a benefit, and in this case there would be none. It would cost a fortune to convert Dish customers to use Directv's satellites, so the new company would end up managing three satellite fleets, one from Directv and two from Dish. You'd get some savings from unified billing and other back office tasks, but Directv already gets that savings from the (still in progress) unification with AT&T's billing, CSRs, etc. Just because it happened with satellite radio doesn't mean it will with satellite TV.

I think they both continue and slowly fade away. Directv has satellites in place to last until at least 2030. Dish will need to launch new satellites before that time. If they do, they'll probably outlast Directv. If they don't, Dish will be first to fold.

 

so basically if you have choice plus.. WHICH AT THE TIME was Directv's BEST service, because of close to 20 years of loyalty we are now the cheap ones? so this is giving them $1500, a year , or more for close to 20 years and now we are the cheapskates? and subject to ridicule from them and here? right.. what kind of thinking is that.. ?

 

It's BS, that's all it is. They'll say anything they can think of to mitigate the damage. Yes, to be ridiculed here is wrong, I think. I don't make the calls for credits very often but this nonsense isn't gonna stop me...no matter what anyone thinks.

Rich

 

A lot of cable providers rarely give discounts to existing customers only new customers. If a TV subscriber reduces their service down to the bare bones or cuts it off altogether because they didn't get a big discount they are happy to oblige as they know you still need their more profitable broadband service for your streaming needs.

When you look at Q2 2019 ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) both AT&T and Charter were the only MVPDs to substantially increase their ARPU after scaling back on promotions.

AT&T which includes DirecTV, U-Verse TV and AT&T Now had an ARPU of $116.85 which grew by 9.1% when compared to Q2 2018 despite being the hardest hit in terms of subscriber loss. Charter was the only other provider to get a significant ARPU gain of 3.2% to bring their standalone TV ARPU up to $92.63.

Dish (Dish/Sling) had a small, modest gain of 0.9% which brought their ARPU to $86.34 while Comcast (the #1 individual provider in terms of TV subs) had actually decreased ARPU by -1.6% lowering theirs to $86.16 which placed them in fourth place behind Dish.

It seems AT&T and Charter has figured out having the most subscriber numbers no matter what the cost is not worth it in today's competitive landscape. AT&T considers DirecTV/U-Verse TV and AT&T TV to be premium video services and want customers on those platforms that will pay for those services. In AT&T's mind if you want a cheap video service they give you the option of AT&T TV Now and/or AT&T Watch TV.

I don't believe the 400k mentioned is exclusively DirecTV. That probably includes everyone at AT&T TV Now that has Live A Little, Just Right, Go Big and Gotta Have It. They probably want all of them to migrate to Plus, Max or the packages that replicate DirecTV in terms of cost.

For DirecTV / U-Verse TV this probably means customers who are on packages like Family or Ubasic. For DirecTV/U-Verse TV it also includes anyone who is receiving a discount that is equal to 50%+ off the regular price of the base package.

 

Lets not forget folks that there are still huge areas of the country that don't have high speed internet or cable TV. Don't know if there are enough to keep DTV in business but. I live in Maine and there are area that you drive that have a dish on every roof. Someone needs to figure a way to get those people attached before sat stuff can go away

 

Linear channels disappearing isn't channels switching to non-linear when the "brand" dies.

I don't expect HBO to drop linear distribution channels on their non-streaming partners. Is this another one of those "five or ten years down the road" predictions that everyone will forget before it doesn't come true?

 

Linear channels disappearing isn't channels switching to non-linear when the "brand" dies.

I'm not sure what this sentence is trying to say. At any rate, brands like HBO will continue on for many years. Linear channels like HBO Signature will not. Brands like Discovery will continue on. Linear channels like DIY will not. The secondary and tertiary channels within the broader brand families will wither away because there's simply not a need for them in an on-demand world.

 

Is viewership so poor on any HBO channel that the channel is in danger of being dropped? ESPN Classic is the aborition. "There was once this one channel that turned off linear several years after the plan was announced." Even with ESPN Classic it has taken several years!

HBO's linear channels will continue as long as people are watching. Even the less popular HBO channels have value as part of the package. The big picture is bigger than households that have streaming access and bandwidth.

You might as well argue that the shopping channels will shut down since people can buy stuff online. That is not happening. Linear still has an important role in the industry.

 

Or the channels have shifted from linear because no one one watches them.. Your trying to create a link from crappy viewership to cord cutting

Good point. I've always found it hard to believe enough people watch the niche programs to justify their existence. I don't see those programs on streaming sites.

Rich

 

There are all kinds of niche programs that originally aired on various TV networks (both domestic and international ones) that are available inside of Netflix and Prime Video, as well as free sources like YouTube, Vudu, Tubi, etc. The owners of that long-tail content want to monetize it any way they can rather than just let it lie around in the vault, getting zero views.

At any rate, just as a rising tide lifts all boats, a receding tide does the opposite. The tide of cable TV viewership is now receding. We saw an explosion in the number of cable nets in the 90s. That number has peaked and is now falling as viewing increasingly shifts to on-demand streaming sources. Meanwhile, among the viewing that still happens on linear channels, it's becoming more concentrated among locals/broadcast nets, plus cable nets focused on live sports and news.

The shift from individual linear channels to broader brands, i.e. branded on-demand content hubs, is what will increasingly happen going forward, as the owners of these various networks launch their own direct-to-consumer on-demand streaming services. This screenshot of the UI in the upcoming HBO Max app illustrates my point pretty well:

 

The fact is that as viewership of cable TV has decreased, so have the number of cable TV networks. I expect both trends will continue, and intensify, in the 2020s.

Evolution tends to weed out weak performers in any environment, I'd think this is a good thing for TV.

Rich

 

I'm not sure what this sentence is trying to say. At any rate, brands like HBO will continue on for many years. Linear channels like HBO Signature will not. Brands like Discovery will continue on. Linear channels like DIY will not. The secondary and tertiary channels within the broader brand families will wither away because there's simply not a need for them in an on-demand world.

Beautiful description of evolution. I was gonna comment on channels like DIY. I do find them interesting but for specific needs I'd always suggest using You Tube videos.

Rich

 

We finally got hoverboards (that don't actually hover). Flying cars is an interesting concept, and I like how Back to the Future handled the concept (showing crowded sky highways, no landing zones and an intact network of streets for non-flying use). New technology does not mean the death of all old related technologies.

The challenge for AT&T|DIRECTV is to "dump" low profit customers while keeping enough customers to remain solvent. Not an easy task.

 

The challenge for AT&T|DIRECTV is to "dump" low profit customers while keeping enough customers to remain solvent. Not an easy task.

In order to do that though, there has to be a value add, and that comes from linear channels. The big selling point for any of DirecTV's packages is that the package has xx (or better yet, xxx) [linear] channels.

Individual shows are ephemeral. Networks are a collection of shows, and with current cable networks, that collection of shows tend to be based around a common theme... DIY, Food, holiday rom coms, news, gossip, etc.

What's has been changing isn't the nature of what a show is, but how it is accessed. Up until recently, for most people, that access was the linear model, which hadn't changed all that much since it began in the 1940s. Sure, there were more channels, but they were still linear channels. The only difference was we went from 3 channels in the 40s, to Dire Straights' 57 (with nothing on) in the 80s, to hundreds in 2010.

The disruptive change is on-demand content. People are no longer locked in to making sure they are in front of the TV at 8pm on Tuesdays to watch Happy Days, and then sit through Laverne and Shirley, or worse yet, Joanie loves Chachi to make it to the show they wanted to watch at 9.

It changes the economics of the whole enterprise. Now, a number of viewers can watch content over weeks or months, and shows can generate revenue under different models... subscriptions, ads like You Tube, etc. Additionally, these shows/networks no longer have to rely on having 10 million viewers sitting in front of TVs at 8pm on Tuesday to make money.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

One thing I find interesting, which to me, tells me something about AT&T and their plans for TV as a content / channel provider. In the NYC Metro area the cable companies, especially Altice, has been bombarding the airwaves trying to get new customers. FIOS too (even though they stopped laying fiber) has been doing the same thing. But, nothing from AT&T for their DirecTV service. It feels to me that they aren't even trying to get new customers. I don't even remember too much of a push for Sunday Ticket this year. This tell me that AT&T has different plans. They really want to push HBO Max as the next big thing. I don't think they even want to push their OTT system, but we'll see.

 

i know here out in LA spectrum's been bombarding my e mail with win back offers discounted tv contract buyout ect ect. i'll only go back to spectrum tv when hell freezes over. makes me wonder how many other people there trying to win back as well!!!

 

Lets not forget folks that there are still huge areas of the country that don't have high speed internet or cable TV. Don't know if there are enough to keep DTV in business but. I live in Maine and there are area that you drive that have a dish on every roof. Someone needs to figure a way to get those people attached before sat stuff can go away

who knows musk wants to launch his own internet service as well as amazon and oneweb and with 5G coming. hopefully there will be more options for rual areas needing broadband

 

Nope, Dish Network cannot even compare to DirecTV other than they are both Satellite.

DTV has better PQ, better channels, better sports and is always fighting to keep channels.

now if they would just come out with a DVR like the hopper 3 or better that would be the perfect match.. why they haven't yet i dunno

 

I was about ready to leave both AT&T and D* mainly because I'm in Unlimited Plus with the 22GB limit before prioritization and the max discount I was eligible for in addition to the $25 video loyalty credit was $10 off for 12 months. Mainly I needed an Unlimited plan with a higher limit before prioritization.

I did shopping around at first on the wireless side AT&T and Verizon are the only two that provide adequate coverage for my area. T-Mobile and Sprint do not so they were out. Figured out with Verizon I would need "Get More Unlimited" on 2 lines at $55/ea/mo and "Do More Unlimited" on the other 2 lines at $45/ea/mo which would be $200/mo before taxes, fees and devices. Did not like with Verizon that in order to secure the free 5G Access you had to get a 5G phone. All of the phones on my account are iPhones there is no 5G iPhone yet and I don't want an Android 5G phone (soz to all the Android fans nothing against you.)

Figured out on the TV front I only watched 16 channels regularly (A&E, AMC, Adult Swim, Comedy Central, Epix, Freeform, FX, FXX, HBO, Paramount, Smithsonian Channel, Syfy, TBS, TNT, truTV and VH1). Figured out I would need YouTube TV + Philo + HBO Now + Epix Now which would be $90.99/mo before taxes. (Or $75.99/mo if I kept AT&T and just switched to Unlimited Elite and dumped D*)

So before I made any drastic decisions I looked around AT&T's online support and found this article about video loyalty credits for D* and U-Verse TV subs. To my amazement I was shocked and happy. AT&T is offering grandfathered Unlimited customers who receive a video loyalty credit on D* and U-Verse TV the opportunity to switch to Unlimited Elite and keep their video loyalty credit!!!

So with this knowledge I figured out the Unlimited Elite with 4 lines would cost me the same $200/mo and each line would get HD streaming (w/ Stream Saver off), 100GB of premium 4G LTE data (more than what Verizon offers), 30GB hotspot per line, free HBO and 5G access included (where available/compatible device required obvs)!! Purrfect plan for me! I can wait for AT&T to upgrade my area to 5G and for Apple to release a 5G iPhone I'm not in a hurry.

So I look at my TV package and I realize I can keep my $25 VLC, downgrade to Select, keep free HBO, keep Movies Extra Pack and Epix plus 3 receivers (HR44, HR24 and C41W) and get all my channels I watch for $84.97/mo before taxes (at this point I had forgotten about the $10 off for 12 months they had offered me earlier and I declined). So I call back to remove 1 C41W from my account (I went ahead and changed my package online) and they offer me the $10 off for 12 again so I kept the extra client and took the discount now my bill is $81.97/mo before taxes. Next year the extra C41W will go lol.

 

Thanks for posting this. I was wondering if we would still get to keep the 25 dollar video loyalty credit if we upgraded our wireless plan. It's one of the reasons I haven't had any desire to change my wireless plan. So does this mean we'll still get the loyalty credit and the hbo discount for life if we upgrade?

 

Yup, if you are getting either the $25 or $15 Video Loyalty Credit on DirecTV or U-Verse TV you can upgrade your grandfathered Unlimited plan to Unlimited Elite and keep your existing Video Loyalty Credit.

Unlimited Elite also includes HBO so you won't lose HBO by upgrading. If you have an earlier Unlimited Plan (like Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Choice) you need to accept the T&C for WatchTV via www.att.com/myatt with your AT&T User ID for your wireless account after you upgrade to Unlimited Elite. Unlimited Elite provides the free HBO benefit through WatchTV and WatchTV will then ensure you continue to receive the monthly credit for HBO on DirecTV. This ensures that if you cancel DirecTV in the future you will still be able to access HBO without one of AT&T's video services.

Note: Unlimited Elite does not include the 30+ channel bundle from WatchTV if you want that its $15/mo