Slashdot Mirror
AT&T Loses Record Number of Traditional TV Subscribers In Q2, Drops 156,000 DirecTV Satellite Customers (variety.com)
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.
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.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
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.
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
http://saveie6.com/
I dropped DirectTV years ago when I used to look at my channel guide on Saturday morning and see page after page of infomercials. And that was after setting up my favorites list which was maybe a third of the channels I was paying for.
Even when a program I liked was playing, the commercial breaks seemed to get longer and longer, and the commercials scummier and scummier. Boner pills. Restless leg syndrome. Reversible mortgages. Snake oil, junk food, and scams.
People are sick and tired of traditional cable systems. They don't want to pay for channels they don't watch. They're tired of the commercials. And they're increasingly spoiled with on-demand programming.
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.
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
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
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.
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.