AT&T’s massive TV losses continue as another 900,000 customers flee.

[goaliebob99]

When the nation is stuck at home, streaming and watching OTB TV services, losing nearly a million customers is not a good show of the strength of your offerings.
"Stephenson said he’s looking at possible job cuts and other cost efficiencies in order to stem the bleeding."

AT&T’s massive TV losses continue as another 900,000 customers flee

AT&T has lost millions of TV customers in past year, plans billions in cost cuts.

arstechnica.com

 

[lparsons21]

Yep, it was expected Coronavirus or not. When the trend is for streaming to skinnier bundles at lower prices, having products that are just the opposite of that just doesn’t make sense.

ATT TV Now losses make sense. When ATT acquired DirecTV they dropped some channels and hiked the price significantly. You know the always successful marketing scheme of ‘providing less for more’!

Edit : Note that Stankey called it ‘efficiency transition’, not job cuts. What utter BS!

 

[navychop]

The scale of the losses surprised me. But I see revenues still went up, so they’re successful at squeezing more out of less.

 

[lparsons21]

The scale of the losses surprised me. But I see revenues still went up, so they’re successful at squeezing more out of less.

How do you read they went up? Here’s the direct quote from the article:

“Across all of AT&T, revenue was $42.8 billion, down from $44.8 billion in last year's first quarter.”

 

[dare2be]

How do you read they went up? Here’s the direct quote from the article:

“Across all of AT&T, revenue was $42.8 billion, down from $44.8 billion in last year's first quarter.”

Maybe Navy meant net income (profit)?

 

[navychop]

How do you read they went up? Here’s the direct quote from the article:

“Across all of AT&T, revenue was $42.8 billion, down from $44.8 billion in last year's first quarter.”

“... Company-wide operating income was $7.5 billion, up from $7.2 billion year over year....”

 

[lparsons21]

“... Company-wide operating income was $7.5 billion, up from $7.2 billion year over year....”

So you mispoke when you said ‘revenue’ - I’ll chalk that up to old age brain fart, I use them a lot!!

 

[navychop]

Err- what were we talking about?

 

[Bruce]

“... Company-wide operating income was $7.5 billion, up from $7.2 billion year over year....”

That is for everything, this should have the most interest to this site- Video revenue was down 8.4% to $7.4 billion, while broadband revenue rose 1.9% to $2.1 billion.

 

[lparsons21]

Some thoughts about ATT and what they could do.

ATT TV Now should shift to the YTTV model. Keep only the Max channel lineup and drop HBO and Cinemax from it, charge $55. That’s a little more than YTTV but it has 5.1 audio that YTTV doesn’t.

That makes ATT TV Now a direct competitor to YTTV and Hulu+Live at a decent price. And ATT TV Now is a direct competitor.

ATT TV - I think they could make the case for this to work by doing away with the contract, box and dual pricing.

IMO, Entertainment is $50/month 1st year, $93/month 2nd year. Offer it at $70 at the outset, no contract, no box. Fair price IMO and possibly a better chance of being successful.

As it sits right now I see no way that ATT TV survives. The contract is a big negative and overshadows any benefit of more channels than some other streamers and 5.1 audio.

 

[nelson61]

Customers dumped them after they got hit with the huge increase after the introductory promo pricing expired(since discontinued) . Both for satellite and their internet packages
As the promo drops roll off over time, the arterial bleeding will slow.

 

[lparsons21]

Customers dumped them after they got hit with the huge increase after the introductory promo pricing expired(since discontinued) . Both for satellite and their internet packages
As the promo drops roll off over time, the arterial bleeding will slow.

I don’t believe that for a minute. The only possibility for that to make a difference is if YTTV and Hulu+Live raise their prices to close to what ATT’s are. I don’t see that happening soon. ATT TV Now just is not competitively priced except at the Max level IF and only IF you would sub to HBO and Cinemax year ‘round.

The ATT TV product with contract just won’t catch on at all. Overpriced and with other significant negatives.

 

[comfortably_numb]

There is a subdivision near my office with ATT Fiber. Intro cost for gigabit broadband is $49.99, add TV and it's $94.99 ($99.99 for the Choice package). I was shocked at how inexpensive that seems for ATT.

 

[lparsons21]

There is a subdivision near my office with ATT Fiber. Intro cost for gigabit broadband is $49.99, add TV and it's $94.99 ($99.99 for the Choice package). I was shocked at how inexpensive that seems for ATT.

Yeah, cable bundling new customer offers can be very enticing. I used one for a few years myself which led me to delay going to streaming.

 

[Bruce]

Some thoughts about ATT and what they could do.

ATT TV Now should shift to the YTTV model. Keep only the Max channel lineup and drop HBO and Cinemax from it, charge $55.

They already did that, but you lose AMC, BBC America, POP and the Discovery Channels which include Animal Planet and Food Network ( which is a must have for my wife ), all of which is included at YTTV at $5 less.

That’s a little more than YTTV but it has 5.1 audio that YTTV doesn’t.

That makes ATT TV Now a direct competitor to YTTV and Hulu+Live at a decent price. And ATT TV Now is a direct competitor.

Care nothing about 5.1 for regular TV, my receiver does a good job turning 2 channel into 5.1, the biggest advantage that YTTV has over NOW is the unlimited DVR that does not expire for 9 months and 1 extra stream vs Now which charges a extra $5 for each ( after 2).

ATT TV - I think they could make the case for this to work by doing away with the contract, box and dual pricing.

IMO, Entertainment is $50/month 1st year, $93/month 2nd year. Offer it at $70 at the outset, no contract, no box. Fair price IMO and possibly a better chance of being successful.

As it sits right now I see no way that ATT TV survives. The contract is a big negative and overshadows any benefit of more channels than some other streamers and 5.1 audio.

I honestly do not now what they were thinking with AT&T TV, the total people that pay for Traditional service has gone from 100 million in 2013 to roughly 82 million now and they create another high price service that looks like the Traditional service subs are leaving.

 

[ncted]

Not surprised the broadband revenues are up. People around me are signing up like crazy. Partly because of all the outages Spectrum has been suffering and partly because you can get symmetric gig for $5 more than Spectrum charges for 200/10.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Not surprised the broadband revenues are up. People around me are signing up like crazy. Partly because of all the outages Spectrum has been suffering and partly because you can get symmetric gig for $5 more than Spectrum charges for 200/10.

I would love to feed my office with symmetric gig speeds, but Comcast Business will only sell me 600/35. I don't know if it's a capacity issue or what, but I think 35 up is ridiculous for business-class service in 2020. Google Fiber is across the street, but they are unwilling to bring it over to our side

 

[raoul5788]

I would love to feed my office with symmetric gig speeds, but Comcast Business will only sell me 600/35. I don't know if it's a capacity issue or what, but I think 35 up is ridiculous for business-class service in 2020. Google Fiber is across the street, but they are unwilling to bring it over to our side

Is only 35 up really an issue? Serious question since I rarely upload large files.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Is 35 up really an issue? Serious question since I rarely upload large files.

It's not always an issue, but we've been doing a lot of live streaming since the onset of the virus, so depending on the number of viewers it could be. I'd prefer an upload speed of 50-100 at the office. At home, 10-25 is enough for us.

 

[Marcingak]

There is a subdivision near my office with ATT Fiber. Intro cost for gigabit broadband is $49.99, add TV and it's $94.99 ($99.99 for the Choice package). I was shocked at how inexpensive that seems for ATT.

Yeah but I doubt that price includes taxes, sports, DVR and equipment fees.