A tough Q4 2018 for AT&T and DirecTV Now
Without discounts and promotions, DirecTV Now takes a quarter-million-subscriber hit.
Q4 2018 (Jan. 30, 2019): Easy come, easy go
AT&T has released its Q4 2018 earnings for the company. DirecTV Now falls under the Entertainment Group. Here's what you need to know:
- DirecTV Now lost 267,000 subscribers for the quarter.
- That takes DirecTV Now down to about 1.57 million subscribers overall.
- "Traditional" video was hit even harder, losing 391,000 subs.
- The company attributes that to a scaling back of promotional prices and says no customers are on those discounted plans.
- Fewer customers are on entry-level plans, but higher tiers remained stable.
- More than a half-million accounts are on the WatchTV skinny bundle.
AT&T's Q1 2019 earnings will be released on April 24.
Q3 2018 (Oct. 24, 2018): DirecTV Now is up, video overall is down
AT&T announced its third-quarter earnings, which means we get a glimpse into the numbers behind a whole lot of things. But for our purposes here, it's DirecTV Now that we're really interested in.
Here's what you need to know:
- DirecTV Now saw 49,000 net additions in the third quarter.
- That should take its total subs to about 1.84 million subscribers.
- AT&T's entertainment group still saw a net loss of 346,000 "traditional video" subscribers. The satellite arm of DirecTV certain makes up a big chunk of that.
- AT&T confirms that it's beginning to "beta test a new streaming video device."
- That new device has been known since the spring, but exactly what it will be — and why you'd want a box from AT&T instead of, say, Amazon or Roku — remains to be seen.
Q2 2018 (July 24, 2018): Enter the Entertainment Group
AT&T today announced its earnings for the second quarter of 2018. And as you'd expect, streaming video is having a pretty big impact on the bottom line.
Here are the big strokes, of interest to cord-cutters:
- AT&T's Entertainment Group — of which DirecTV Now is a part — saw 342,000 net additions in the second quarter
- That gives DirecTV Now a total of 1.8 million subscribers (up from 1.5 million in Q1)
- But total video subscribers were up by just 80,000 for the quarter
- DirecTV satellite subscribers continue to switch elsewhere, losing 286,000 customers
The delivery mechanisms are just a few parts of what AT&T is doing today, though, particularly after AT&T's purchase of Time Warner in Q2. Look for more original programming from the newly formed Warner Media properties, and new features (and new revenue streams) from all of AT&T's assets.
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