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Time Warner Deal Aftermath: AT&T Is About To Give Free TV To Its Wireless Customers (cnbc.com)
AT&T completed its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner yesterday and we're already starting to see some exclusive deals offered to its customers. CNBC reports that the company "will be launching a 'very, very skinny bundle' of television programming free to its mobile customers." From the report: "We will be launching, and you're going to hear more about this next week, a product called 'AT&T Watch TV,'" Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "It will be the Turner content. It will not have sports. It'll be entertainment-centered." AT&T's unlimited wireless customers will get the service for free, Stephenson said, "or you can buy it for $15 a month on any platform." The service will be ad-supported, and AT&T will be ramping up an advertising platform, he said. He added that the company expects in coming weeks to make smaller acquisitions to enable those ad efforts. CNBC is also reporting that Time Warner is changing its name to WarnerMedia, and Turner Broadcasting CEO John Martin is departing the company.
>> AT&T Watch TV - $15 a month - ad-supported
Just like Netflix, only twice as much and half as good, plus you have to watch ads.
Seems like a winner to me!
Er mer freakin' gerd! They're offering something that's available to anyone over the air, with a Mohu HDTV antenna, for "free." Frankly, I'd rather have the cell plan be $5 per month cheaper.
when i tried DirecTV (owned by AT&T) they did not tell me that more than half the channels are spammy home shopping channels, i canceled in less than a month, so i bet their free TV will be served with even more spammy TV viewing, TV is terrible, i refuse to watch it because of the spammy advertising, i refuse to allow any corporation to turn any of my gadgets in to a platform for advertising
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Cable news?
And some people (not me) enjoy channel surfing.
You have to be a customer to get it for free, so it's not really free. Sure, I get that the bill isn't going to go up and a subscriber would get additional benefits but they are still paying every month.
My cable company recently raised the download speeds, as if I can tell the difference between 50mb and 100mb 99.99% of the time. Most of the time, my download speed is not the limiting factor but rather the server I'm requesting from that has the slow down. They did this without changing my Internet bill. Ironically though, they did increase the cable bill and box rental fee along with a a tax increase. Almost think they want me to cut the cord and try out sling.
Point being, they gave me increased download speeds for the same price but it certainly is not free because I still pay my bill every month. I actually went to their site to see if the tier below was good enough to drop down to. Naturally they only raised the top two tiers of service but not the bottom two.
In closing, there is no such thing as a free lunch.