This week The Wall Street Journal observers said, “We expect sub losses will slow in the second half [of the year] as AT&T simplifies its DIRECTV NOW plans and as Charter’s pruning efforts come to an end,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Story went on to say that it forecasts a loss of 113,000 pay-TV subscribers in the third quarter and a loss of only 7,000 in the fourth quarter.
So what does this mean? We don’t know, but coming from Wall Street Observer it likely means something is in the works. It obviously thinks something will be pushing new growth as it predicts services like DIRECTV NOW, YouTube TV, Hulu, and Sling TV will see a big jump in subscribers. “We believe these providers can cumulatively add at least 500,000-750,000 subs per year,” Yong said.
Even at just 500,000 subscribers, growth would likely mean a doubling of subscribers for DIRECTV NOW and would add to the estimated 2,000,000 subscribers that Sling TV has.
Cord Cutters News has reached out to AT&T for comment. For now though we will have to wait and see what AT&T has planned for DIRECTV NOW.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Update: Corrected the story to list The Hollywood Reporter as the source.
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