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AT&T Television Businesses Communications The Almighty Buck Entertainment

AT&T Loses Record Number of Traditional TV Subscribers In Q2, Drops 156,000 DirecTV Satellite Customers (variety.com) 83

Posted by BeauHD from the internet-killed-television dept.
According to Variety, AT&T's pay-TV business has lost a record 351,000 traditional video customers in the second quarter, with the internet-delivered DirecTV Now service failing to fully offset the losses. From the report: In Q2, historically a seasonally weak period for the pay-TV business, DirecTV's U.S. satellite division lost 156,000 customers sequentially, dropping to 20.86 million, compared with a gain of 342,000 in the year-earlier quarter. AT&T's U-verse lost 195,000 subs in the quarter, which was actually an improvement over the 391,000 it lost in Q2 of 2016. AT&T touted that it gained 152,000 DirecTV Now customers in Q2, after adding just 72,000 in the first quarter of 2017. Overall, it had signed up 491,000 DirecTV Now subs as of the end of June, after the OTT service launched seven months ago.
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AT&T Loses Record Number of Traditional TV Subscribers In Q2, Drops 156,000 DirecTV Satellite Customers More

AT&T Loses Record Number of Traditional TV Subscribers In Q2, Drops 156,000 DirecTV Satellite Customers

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  • Cord-cutting! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @08:31PM (#54879055)

    I'm about to do the same to Comcast.. I'll just keep their internet.

    Honestly, the only things I watch on "TV" (and these are DVR'd, due to this and that are.. The Amazing World of Gumball, Mighty Magiswords, Formula One racing, the odd thing on Science, and CNN's The "insert decade here"...

    I'm *this* close to doing it.. to cutting the cord. Why haven't I done so yet? Dunno.. inertia? Nostalgia? Certainly nothing *rational* that I can think of..

    Sorry, network / cable guys.. TV lost. It has become irrelevant.

    • Re: Cord-cutting! (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I haven't had cable since 2011 - it's never been an issue.

      • I had cable from 1999 to 2003, but then I moved and I didn't see the point of getting it. Before that I just had regular TV and after 2003, I would just watch stuff on the internet. Cable seemed expensive and unnecessary.
    • No TV since 2003! Yet, I still watch many shows - when I want to and without ads.

      • No TV for me since 1993! Yet, I don't watch any shows, whether they have ads or not. Just can't find any that hold my interest. I watch a movie or every week or so. Otherwise, it's books, music, cooking, puttering, hell I even spend time at the gym most days. Anything beats TV.

        --
        I fought with destiny up on the ledge and gasped when, defeated, he slipped off the edge.

      • No TV since 2003! Yet, I still watch many shows - when I want to and without ads.

        Until net neutrality being out enabling ISPs to throttle Netflix and Hulu making your Roku useless and choppy. You can only use a tiered $200 a month service now which mysteriously work just fine. Anything less is communism of government regulation etc.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by johanw ( 1001493 )

          Why would I want Netflix if thepiratebay.org has everything I want without the hassle of streaming and artificial limitations?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by schnell ( 163007 )

            Why would I want Netflix if thepiratebay.org has everything I want without the hassle of streaming and artificial limitations?

            Maybe if you cared about quaint old ideas like the people who made those TV shows getting paid for doing so and providing a revenue stream for those people to create more things you like in the future. Or if you believe in even quainter ideas like that if you don't want to pay for something you don't just get to use it anyway.

            Hey, I used to pirate plenty of stuff too, back when I didn't have any money and/or it was really hard to find stuff on iTunes, Amazon, Google, Netflix or Hulu. I get it, especially if

    • You'll keep the internet and they will use cable style methods to extract the lost revenue. I pay $105 for 200 down 10 up, I miss my 50 down that varied from 50 to 65 dollars. But CableOne started experimenting with caps and overages finally settling on a moderate to small cap with a three strikes your out (or must upgrade) for overages. I went over 3 times and boom 65 (iirc) went to ~112 then I bought my own modem now 105. I'm on my third strike thanks to a family of internet users and Netflix 4k in addit

      • You'll keep the internet and they will use cable style methods to extract the lost revenue.

        Had I a choice, I'd exercise it. As it is, AT&T already lost my business 2 years ago - their DSL simply can't go faster than barely 1.25 mbps down at my location. uVerse wasn't an option due to my distance from the CO. So, my options are .. Comcast, Comcast and more Comcast. And maybe carrier pigeon.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tsqr ( 808554 )

          uVerse wasn't an option due to my distance from the CO.

          U-Verse isn't an option for anyone any more, as ATT has stopped accepting new subscribers. They haven't kicked off the existing subscriber base yet, but you can bet that day is coming.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        We're all being pretty dumb and stubborn about this stuff.

        Netflix 4k is a horribly inefficient means of delivering that content. Satellite + DVR is by far the most efficient solution, and should also be the cheapest after accounting for the economies of scale (ie. if everyone was splitting the cost of the infrastructure), but they are way overpriced, don't provide inexpensive ala cart, restrict your use (how the hell do they get away with charging per-TV!?!!?), and (IME) don't maintain their equipment. That

    • I did the same to Cox Communications about two years ago. Back then I'd signed up for the triple play package. It was reasonable - I believe $75 a month for all of it. A year later it rose to $150, then $170 and when it hit $200 per month I brought back the cable box and told them in addition to shut the phone service off.

      They were pretty funny when I told them to shut off the phone service. They were like but, but what about E-911 - already have my mobile phone all set up for that. Well we can offer it

    • I'm about to do the same to Comcast.. I'll just keep their internet.

      I did this last week. Made the switch to PlayStation Vue [playstation.com]. I bumped internet service up from 25 Mbps to 75 Mbps though for video streaming purposes though. Testing it out, I've gotten as high as 90 Mbps. It's saving me about $75 per month!

    • I'm about to do the same to Comcast.. I'll just keep their internet.

      I did this years ago, and it was one of the best things I've done. Now, I'm just looking forward to the day when I can dump Comcast entirely and get my broadband somewhere else. That's not possible yet, though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      why haven't I?

      cause if I keep their cable I get 100Mb internet + TV for roughly 16$ more a month than paying for their 10Mb stand alone

    • I'm thisclose to telling TWC/Spectrum to go fornicate themselves.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by torkus ( 1133985 )

        I prefer the do that with their maternal parent, though the paternal one will suffice.

        They don't seem able to find their posterior with both hands so auto-copulation seems a bit outside their abilities.

        Did you notice that they bumped prices AND all their new packages charge even more for significantly less bandwidth? Improving service indeed...

  • Fuck ATT (Score:2)

    by geek ( 5680 )

    I swore I'd never give them another penny so long as I lived, then they went and bought DirecTV before my contract was over. Once it's done I'm out, never again. Those cock suckers can rot.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And they fucked up DirecTV bill pay for us in the process. Everything about DirecTV was better than the other options, especially cable, but then AT&T came along.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by torkus ( 1133985 )

      That's not rejection, that's bitching and moaning and ... given the effective monopoly (or collusion between the extremely limited choices leading to the same thing) you don't really have any choice to take your money elsewhere.

  • Quick! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @09:29PM (#54879375) Journal

    Get rid of net neutrality ASAP so Netflix can be throttled out of existence so expensive tiers I don't want can be forced upon me!!

    Anything else is Communism and Obama had something to do with it. We don't want to end up like Venezuela so let's give up some rights to the big corporations now before it's too late who have our best interests at heart

    • Re:Quick! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Espectr0 ( 577637 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @11:18PM (#54879781) Journal

      Venezuelan here. I know you are joking but there are still some of you that actually think Obama or anyone in the democratic party is a communist. You couldn't know the difference, and frankly "communist Obama" would be a godsend in a communist / socialist country such as mine.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @09:34PM (#54879393)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I was trying to watch some of the archived shows that are available with my DirecTV Now account. Their 72-hour and on-demand playback features have been getting a back seat, and are still very unreliable.

      Eventually I gave up and just went to a pirate site to watch the shows. WOW. The pirated shows happen to be commercial-free. An episode of a 30 minute sitcom is about 22 minutes. So 8 minutes - more than 25% of the playtime - is commercials. Some episodes are only about 20 minutes long, meaning 33%

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        I have cable television, just dumped AT&T and went back to Comcast. AT&T's service was really substandard. When I first switched, they had 4 tuners and comcast had 2, but now the x1 box has 5, and it's interface is light years ahead of the Uverse interface.
        The real kicker is that every on-demand show lets me fast forward, Uverse restricts this on anything. If the DVR didn't get it I would torrent before resorting to Uverse on-demand. Comcast on-demand is actually usable and has a significantly deepe

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Your business model is dying. The sooner you become an IPTV on-demand gateway for content distributors, the better. Otherwise, the Roku boxes of the world will do it for you.

      Well they could, but what value would they add? Of course the streaming platform has to actually work, but other than that it's not music where you have playlists and sharing and artists hoping to be discovered on Spotify. If I want to see a 30+ minute show I can be arsed to log in to whatever service has it, whether it's Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO or their own portal. The production companies and movie studios are no small fish either, they're perfectly capable of doing it on their own. There's not much mo

    • Plus there are the opening and closing Credits making the actual program about 15 minutes long

  • It's all about live sports (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If it wasn't for live golf, NFL, college football, college basketball, tennis... it's easy to cut the cord. But most of those (golf majors and some tennis as outliers) you have nothing. As soon as I can ppv on the internet for the broncos or UK football / basketball, I'm out. Until then, I'm locked in

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by srwood ( 99488 )

      I get all my sports on Playstation Vue via Roku.

    • Most of those you can watch with a regular antenna.

    • Not that I care for live sports, but can't you just get online season pass for your favourite sport which will have every game in the league, way more extra content than cable, and cost less for a whole season than you pay for a month of normal cable.

      Plus every cent you pay goes to the league instead of cable where 99.99% of what you pay goes to cable execs salaries and to pay for 20,000 crappy shows by special interests that nobody is willing to watch or pay for.
      • Not all sports, and generally games are blacked out. I can stream all of the Pens games, except any when they're playing the Capitals. And the playoffs are all blacked out. Plus, there is no option for NFL or a lot of college football games that I want to watch. Even if there were (non blacked out) options for all of the sports that I care about, I guarantee it would be more expensive than cable. Just look at how expensive the NFL package on DirecTV is.

    • I'm so glad that I have no interest in sports. It makes these sorts of decisions much, much easier.

  • I swear their telemarketers called our house at least 50 times the past year. They use a robo-dialer, and if somebody answers, immediately switch to a pooled human (no water jokes, please). I did Trump impressions to fuck with them.

  • I tried DirecTV for a short time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @05:06AM (#54880551)
    and i quit after the first month, what DirecTV dont tell you is over half the channels are spam channels nothing but home shopping channels trying to sell you crap you dont need, i dont want to wade through that crap to find something to watch, and DirecTV tried to get me to pay for a whole year and i called my credit card company and told them my credit card got stolen and to cancel that card and send me a new card with a new number cutting DirecTV off i refuse to pay for a whole year of shitty service from a bunch of spammers disguised as a satellite TV company, Fuck DirecTV i hope they go bankrupt and out of business

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      When I still had DirectTV I was shocked by the number of actual channels we watched. It was in the low 2 digits. It was interesting using MythTV to completely disable and hide channels and show the resulting leftover. Because of the mysql backend I could slice and dice things and see what was actually recorded and from what channels.

      Half of the channels we did watch could easily be displaced by Netflix. Some channels had no more than a single show worth watching.

  • AT&T customer here (Score:3)

    by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve ( 949321 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @07:18AM (#54880953)
    Not surprised by this at all. I've been a long time customer and I currently have Uverse, so they provide my TV and internet. I'm not really happy with what I'm paying, although I do like the TV channels I get and the internet is plenty fast for my needs. So some months ago I talked to them and told them that they had to get my rates down or I would leave and go to Comcast, my only other choice where I live. AT&T told me that I had to move over to DirecTV to save any money, but they offered me a pretty good savings if I would switch and I'd get equivalent channels. I warned them that I live in a heavily wooded area with very high trees. "Don't worry. We have plenty of customers like you." Service guy comes out. Says he can't get a good signal anywhere. No DirecTV for me. No discount either. Now I want to be clear that I told AT&T if they didn't drop my rates that I was leaving. They really don't care. It makes no sense, but they are running their business where they would rather lose existing customers completely than give them a discount.

    So I contacted Comcast. I can get the exact same TV channels or close enough and maybe slightly faster internet (not really a big deal to me - again, current internet is fast enough for my needs) but at exactly what I'm paying AT&T. Oh - you can't actually talk to anybody at Comcast. You have to use a chat window. So Comcast drone says "What do you think of that price? Isn't that great?" and I said "Not really." and disconnected them. I'm getting to the point where I may give AT&T one last chance to keep me, which I expect to fail, and then I'll just go to Comcast and pay exactly the same as I'm paying now or I'll just cut the cord altogether. Not sure which yet. But it is very clear to me that AT&T doesn't value my business at all and I'm not willing to stay there much longer without a discount.

  • I get that they might have 156k subscribers that unsubscribed, but how can it be a net loss if over 200k people subscribed?

    Isn't the real news here "Boohoo, we didn't sucker as many people into our crap this quarter"?

  • I Tried to get AT&T (Score:3)

    by Tempest_2084 ( 605915 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @07:50AM (#54881081)
    Back when Charter decided to almost double my monthly cable cost I told them to go pound sand and went with the only other option in my area: AT&T U-Verse. They told me that not only was it available in my area, but it would be significantly cheaper (if a little slower) so I said that sounded fine. First they send the guy out to hook me up and tell me that whoever laid the main cable trunk did it wrong and they would have to come back another time to hook me up, they never did. I called AT&T and they apologized and said they'd send a guy out. The second guy said that there was no way I could get AT&T at my house and the guys are corporate were smoking something. At this point I was more than a little pissed off since I had been without any sort of internet for almost a week so I called back to just cancel the whole damn thing when they absolutely 100% promised me that not only could I get AT&T at my location but that someone would show up promptly to hook me up. No one ever came. I ended up going back to Charter and getting a semi-decent deal where I only get 10 'non-basic' channels for a really low rate, but since I only watch about 10 non-basic channels it's not a big deal. The cost ends up being slightly cheaper than cord cutting and a lot more convenient.
  • A salesman dropped by yesterday saying there were extending fiber in my area, and while it was competitive price/performance to Spectrum/TW Cable it was a lot more for a lot less compared to WOW which we've been using so no sale... I had been excited thinking they'd be offering gigabit but it was just 25 megabit when the local cable co's are starting baseline offers at 100 these days.

  • I quit Directv after only 7 months - their 'standard professional install' did not document their behavior of leaving the two dishes (standard and international) on bricks on the ground for 7 months. They moved during winter and refused to come out to complete the install. Upon cancelling they attempted to charge me full termination rate until I forced them to consider the install as being part of the contract - standard professional install != on bricks on ground. I read through the contractors instruction

  • This is what is keeping me on DirecTV. Most of the major networks are blacked out on streaming options in my area since I'm close to DC, so no go there. Granted, when we finally get the option to pick and choose channels and sports (that I care about) to stream, I'm sure the cost will be comparable (or much more). Either way, someone is getting my money. I just make sure to call once a year and threaten to switch to FIOS TV. That keeps costs in check somewhat.

  • I wonder if any of the AT&T executives have even tried the fire stick. I watched game of thrones on a fucking playstation the other night.

    The only problem putting the nail into the coffin is that there are still rural areas that aren't adequately internet serviced a real paradox for a company like AT&T.

  • I've been a cord cutter for so long (about 8 years now) that the idea of subscribing to traditional cable/satellite TV seems so archaic and such a massive waste of money to me now. It always feels weird to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV the old fashioned way. To me, cable/satellite is the TV equivalent of a flip phone.

    • Yes, me too.

      It always feels weird to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV the old fashioned way.

      My reaction when this happens isn't that I feel weird. It's that I feel actively irritated, and I wonder how on earth anyone can put up with it.

  • I think this has less to do with people paying for and watching streaming services than it does at the ever-increasing fees for DirecTV. I can't remember the last time my bill was $50 a month. Get ready for ISPs to regularly increase their rates once they have a dominant position in the market.

  • I have DirectTV, and about the only reason is that my mother watches WAY more channels that I do. If it were me I'd either cut down to the bare package or get rid of it entirely.

    I've love an ala carte system but they won't resort to that until they've lost more subscribers--and then they'll try to make it up with charges.

    Most annoying.

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