AT&T Wants to Move DIRECTV Customers to Streaming Services Like AT&T TV & HBO Max

[Bruce]

Today during a Reuters interview with AT&T’s Chief Operating Officer John Stankey, we got a new look at AT&T’s long term TV plans. According to AT&T’s COO, the plan is to move DIRECTV customers to a streaming service.

“We didn’t buy DIRECTV because we love satellite,” said Stankey. “We bought DIRECTV because we love the customer base and the customer base could be migrated into more on-demand-oriented products and services.”


AT&T Wants to Move DIRECTV Customers to Streaming Services Like AT&T TV & HBO Max - Cord Cutters News


Behind AT&T's plan to take on Netflix, Apple and Disney with HBO Max


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[fireponromance]

They’ve said similar in the past but I’ll still write wow. Talk about a company that didn’t understand why so many love DirecTV. They didn’t get it then and obviously still don’t now. Talk about stabbing their most loyal customer base in the back.


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[Radioguy41]

There they go again, assuming everybody in the country has broadband. If anyone doesn't understand why AT&T is such a mess all they have to do is listen to this guy and others like him.

Urban areas have the best broadband infrastructure but urban areas are not great satellite TV markets, suburban and rural areas are satellite TV markets and coincidentally the areas with the least access to broadband. Can you say "No clue."?

 

[mdram]

great!
as long as they run free broadband to me so my bill stays the same, i am all for it

 

[mdonnelly]

I'm sure that they want to do that, but until they can run something better than DSL to my house, it's not gonna work for me.

 

[Bruce]

There they go again, assuming everybody in the country has broadband. If anyone doesn't understand why AT&T is such a mess all they have to do is listen to this guy and others like him.

Urban areas have the best broadband infrastructure but urban areas are not great satellite TV markets, suburban and rural areas are satellite TV markets and coincidentally the areas with the least access to broadband. Can you say "No clue."?

I have said it before, they do not care about the 15-20% that cannot get fast enough broadband, they care about the 80-85% that can, did Disney think about the minority that cannot get fast enough broadband for their new channel, if they did it would be a regular premium cable channel so rural customers can get it via Satellite, what about Netflix, they now have 60 million subs, they are doing fine without those who cannot get it.

This is what AT&T care about, maximizing profits, one of the biggest ways is getting rid of all those employees that handle DirecTV in its current form.

Is this fair for the rural folks, no, but there is no law that says that someone most provide TV service and fast broadband to you.

Pray for Starlink or another like service works out, that way rural folks can handle this change of Television into more of a Netflix like service.


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[Ypsiguy]

There they go again, assuming everybody in the country has broadband. If anyone doesn't understand why AT&T is such a mess all they have to do is listen to this guy and others like him.

Urban areas have the best broadband infrastructure but urban areas are not great satellite TV markets, suburban and rural areas are satellite TV markets and coincidentally the areas with the least access to broadband. Can you say "No clue."?

Suburban areas for the most part have broadband. Suburbanites choose satellite usually because of price or poor TV service on the part of their cable company, like I did. Xfinity broadband in my area is good and goes up to 400Mbps. Their TV service sucks.

AT&T will be ceding satellite service to Dish and Orby if they kill satellite service. Rural folks depend on satellite.

 

[comp9]

here we go again with another award winning cordcutters article

 

[Bruce]

Suburban areas for the most part have broadband. Suburbanites choose satellite usually because of price or poor TV service on the part of their cable company, like I did. Xfinity broadband in my area is good and goes up to 400Mbps. Their TV service sucks.

Only 400, I am in Belleville we can go up to 2G here, I have 1G service with no Data Caps (xFi Advantage ).

AT&T will be ceding satellite service to Dish and Orby if they kill satellite service. Rural folks depend on satellite.

If Dish makes it that long ( Orby, I believe, there is no way it does), their profits are getting less and less every year, (for example-Net income attributable to DISH Network totaled $317 million for the second quarter 2019, compared to net income of $439 million from the year-ago quarter.) and the only way to make more is get more subscribers ( and they have lost about 4 million over the last few years) or increase prices so much but that will just increase the churn rate (look at DirecTV now.

As far as profits go, look at Comcast this quarter-$3.22 billion.

 

[CycloneSat]

They’re gonna end up losing customers like me rather than getting everyone to move to streaming. Actually was looking up Dish plans the other day.

 

[lparsons21]

If Dish makes it that long ( Orby, I believe, there is no way it does), their profits are getting less and less every year, (for example-Net income attributable to DISH Network totaled $317 million for the second quarter 2019, compared to net income of $439 million from the year-ago quarter.) and the only way to make more is get more subscribers ( and they have lost about 4 million over the last few years) or increase prices so much but that will just increase the churn rate (look at DirecTV now.

ATT has said they don’t want DirecTV just the customer base which is sending the message that DirecTV’s end times are approaching, probably sooner than later. Then Dish becomes the only way for lots of rural viewers to get TV and that means more subs which should mean more profits. The nice part for Dish is they don’t have to spend any money to buy DirecTV as there is no reason to.


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[slice1900]

That statement doesn't mean anything. He didn't give any timetable, there is no "forced migration" happening anytime in the near or medium term. They wouldn't have launched T16 if they were planning on pushing people off in the next few years, the existing satellites at 101 had plenty of life left if that was the timeframe.

The current satellite fleet is good for at least a decade, that's why they aren't launching any more satellites - because they don't need to!

 

[lparsons21]

That statement doesn't mean anything. He didn't give any timetable, there is no "forced migration" happening anytime in the near or medium term. They wouldn't have launched T16 if they were planning on pushing people off in the next few years, the existing satellites at 101 had plenty of life left if that was the timeframe.

The current satellite fleet is good for at least a decade, that's why they aren't launching any more satellites - because they don't need to!

And you don’t think they can sell or repurpose those satellites?


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[Tampa8]

This is the proverbial writing on the wall, redux. They are shouting from the Mountain top Directv only has a short time left on this earth at least as it now is. It was one of the first things the Chairman said back when they acquired it and they are letting us know they are not kidding. They don't really want it for much longer.
My feeling is they are trying to flush out if anyone comes forward to do something with it. It is also in direct response to some pressure to get rid of it sooner rather than later.

 

[SamCdbs]

I would like to see a link to where it is only “20%” that cannot get fast enough internet.

In any event, pure cluelessness.

- 20% of the 120M TV homes Nielsen says there are is 24M. Which is, umm, more customers than DirecTV has now.

- And that leaves out commercial accounts.

- The math of cord cutting in any form ONLY works when you assume the customer is going to buy internet anyway. News Flash: 50M households do not have internet at all, and another 70M do not have high speed internet. And, no, not because they are “poor” or live out in the sticks. Because they don’t want it. When you add a internet bill and a cord cutting bill together, provider TV is less expensive.

- As we have seen over and over, from the Woods-Mickelson fiasco to two weeks ago’s failure of the internet version of NFLST, the internet is just not ready for prime time in terms of live sports and other major mega-viewer events (news events, disasters, etc.). So the number of people who have internet capable of delivering what satellites do to the number of people that it does now, might not be 80% of the population. It is closer to zero percent.

- Content is king. And what differentiates DirecTV Now from the others? Nothing. You are signing up for a race to the bottom with a product that a customer can switch with the push of a button with an offer of saving a few cents. Sounds like the long distance wars. Which AT&T lost.

 

[Ypsiguy]

Only 400, I am in Belleville we can go up to 2G here, I have 1G service with no Data Caps (xFi Advantage ).



If Dish makes it that long ( Orby, I believe, there is no way it does), their profits are getting less and less every year, (for example-Net income attributable to DISH Network totaled $317 million for the second quarter 2019, compared to net income of $439 million from the year-ago quarter.) and the only way to make more is get more subscribers ( and they have lost about 4 million over the last few years) or increase prices so much but that will just increase the churn rate (look at DirecTV now.

As far as profits go, look at Comcast this quarter-$3.22 billion.

Could be even more bandwidth now. Last I looked it was 400Mbps. 30Mbps is fine for me.

 

[Bruce]

I would like to see a link to where it is only “20%” that cannot get fast enough internet.

Internet Access in the U.S.

Nationally, 84% of American households have a broadband internet subscription, yet only 13% of the population has access to high-speed broadband internet with speeds greater than 1 gigabit per second.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/10-best-states-for-internet-access

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[Scott Greczkowski]

I dont know many people or even companies that have faster than 1 gigabit internet.

 

[Bruce]

I dont know many people or even companies that have faster than 1 gigabit internet.

2G is available here but I am not going to spend the extra $155 a month for it, 1G is just fine for me.


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[slice1900]

And you don’t think they can sell or repurpose those satellites?

Once they are in orbit their usefulness to others is pretty limited. They have the beams tailored to fit CONUS, meaning they aren't too useful for other countries. They have spotbeams for receiving uplinks from certain geographic areas which limits them even within the US. Then there's the issue of the bands they use, reverse band sees very little use anywhere so that payload is mostly wasted.

If they weren't going to stick around for more than a few years, they would never have launched T16. Before it launched it could easily be modified to fit the needs of someone else anywhere in the world, now that its beam patterns are tailored to the US, it is only covers the US portion of Ku rather than the 2 GHz wide Ku that Europe uses, etc. etc. it has a fraction of its former value.