In total AT&T lost 1,358,000 traditional pay-TV subscribers in the third quarter of 2019 when you count losses from DIRECTV, U-verse TV, and AT&T TV NOW. This means AT&T is losing over 19,836 subscribers every single day. This is up from the same time in 2018 when AT&T lost just 297,000 TV subscribers.
AT&T had said during the first quarter of 2019 that they expect DIRECTV NOW (now called AT&T TV NOW) to gain subscribers in the second half of 2019, but that has not happened. Later AT&T warned that AT&T TV NOW’s subscriber numbers would continue to fall through 2019 with the goal of seeing numbers grow in 2020. Now AT&T says that the loss of AT&T TV NOW subscribers was because of “higher prices and less promotional activity.” AT&T went on to blame the subscriber losses for DIRECTV and U-verse TV on “customers rolling off promotional discounts, programmer disputes and competition as well as lower gross adds due to the continued focus on adding higher value customers.”
AT&T did add 119,000 new internet customers to help offset the losses in pay-TV subscribers. AT&T now has $158,000,000,000 in net debt.
The drop in new subscribers is likely caused by several factors like increased competition from new live TV streaming services, AT&T TV NOW’s recent price hike, fewer deals on AT&T TV NOW, and a lack of promotion of AT&T TV NOW overall. You also likely have to point to some general confusion over the new name that may be a factor in the drop in subscriber numbers.
Other cord cutting services like Hulu and YouTube TV have seen strong growth. Hulu has over 2 million live TV subscribers and YouTube TV has close to 2 million subscribers.
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