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AT&T Communications Television United States Entertainment

DirecTV Now Leak Reveals Channels, Promotions of AT&T's Upcoming TV Service (variety.com) 45

It seems AT&T won't leave any stone unturned for its upcoming DirecTV Now streaming service. According to a new report, the company is planning to offer a free Apple TV set-top box or an Amazon Fire USB stick to people who subscribe to the service. From a report on Variety, which also details some channels that could be featured on DirecTV Now: The leaked documents detail that consumers who are willing to commit to at least three months of paid service will be able to get a free Apple TV as part of a device promotion. Consumers who pay for one month will get a free Fire TV streaming stick. Both devices are more expensive on their own than the service charges consumers would have to pay to qualify for each promotion. AT&T officially announced DirecTV Now as an internet-based live TV service earlier this year. The telco has since given us some idea about the programming, announcing deals with Disney, NBCUniversal and Viacom as well as Scripps, A&E Networks, Discovery, HBO, and Starz. Last month, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson announced that DirecTV Now will cost $35 per month and carry more than 100 channels when it launches in the coming weeks. The leaked customer-support documents didn't include complete channel lineups -- those also depend on the local markets of subscribers -- but they do give us a better idea of which other channels DirecTV Now aims to launch with. A partial list of channels included not only networks from the aforementioned partners, but also Univision networks like Galavision, Univision and UniMas, Fox and MundoFox, CBS, HDNet Movies, the Hallmark Channel and the Sony Movie Channel.
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DirecTV Now Leak Reveals Channels, Promotions of AT&T's Upcoming TV Service

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  • Please provide kidney in lieu of long-term contract for free Apple TV or Fire Stick.
  • I am assuming that this will have the full 15 minutes of commercials per hour that normal "cable" packages have?

    • by PRMan ( 959735 )
      Yes. It's just access to live TV same as Sling TV or Playstation Vue (but without Vue's cloud DVR).
  • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @02:00PM (#53231289)

    The target market for this service is made 100% crystal clear by their placeholder page.

    Leave your name and email here. We'll hit you up later with the deets.

    A'ight bro

    • Oh dear - I guess I should put my email here then... won't the ladies in my bridge club be jealous!

      stephensfavoritegrandma123@aol.com

    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      The target market for this service is made 100% crystal clear by their placeholder page.

      Leave your name and email here. We'll hit you up later with the deets.

      A'ight bro

      So the target is 40 somethings who might still use the term 'deets'?

  • by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @02:08PM (#53231353) Homepage Journal

    100 channels makes it sound like the awful days when I had a dish. There mere many channels, mostly crap.

    Now there are no channels, there are programs and you watch them by choosing the programs. Channels are an artifact of radio transmission and have no place in internet streamed media.

    • I thought "channels" had two purposes: to show live programs, such as sports, award shows, or political talk; and to get more than one subscriber onto an IP multicast group.

  • ...consumers who are willing to commit to at least three months of paid service will be able to get a free Apple TV as part of a device promotion

    Pretty sure there's different terms for those that's not a "your choice" thing. There's a big difference in device retail value between an Apple and a Fire Stick.
    Like maybe a Fire Stick for three months pre-paid and an AppleTV for a one-year contract. Sounds much more AT&T.

    • Like maybe a Fire Stick for three months pre-paid and an AppleTV for a one-year contract. Sounds much more AT&T.

      Certainly if they have any clue that's how they'll set it up, because the FireTV Stick is a POS.

  • I'd do it for an Apple TV. I've never wanted one, but I may have to support one from time to time so it would be good to play with one. If I can pay below retail and get some free streaming TV to go with it, I'll do it.

    And then back to my Netflix with an extra device to watch it on.

  • will they lower the HBO price on sat / iptv systems as well?

  • I can barely justify Netflix as a package, but a bundle of cable channels? That's the last thing I want.

    • by harrkev ( 623093 )

      Netflix has the advantage of watching any of their programs at any time. With OTA, cable, and satellite, you also have the option of recording it to watch later.

      With this thing, it appears that there is no such thing as recording? I noticed a "72-hour catch-up windows" for "many" networks. Cute, but in my house a show can sit for a week or two before we get a chance to watch it, and that is just with OTA as a source. Thanks, but no thanks.

  • This service sounds pretty much the same thing as what Dish is offering with Sling TV.

    I actually cancelled cable and have now a couple of Nvidia Shield's with Sling TV. Works quite well; some channels provide on-demand, some channels allow you to watch programming from the last 24 hours, and of course. Works fine for us for now; I got the basic package plus blue package. You can watch up to three devices at the same time.

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