After months of teasing the eventual launch of DirecTV Now — a live-TV streaming service that doesn’t require a subscription to cable — AT&T has finally announced the important details of the product that will kick off on Nov. 30 at a price ranging from $35 for around 60 channels to $70 for more than 120 channels.
The service will launch in four different tiers: $35 (dubbed “Live a Little); $50 (80+ channels, “Just Right”); $60 (100+ channels, “Go Big”); and $70 (Gotta Have It). Each tier will allow users to have two simultaneous streams going at any given time.
At launch, the “Go Big” package will sell for only $35/month. AT&T claims that customers who take advantage of this promotion will be grandfathered in after the price increases. For subscribers willing to commit to multiple months, AT&T will offer free Apple TV streaming devices. A single month commitment can also get you an Amazon Fire TV streaming stick for plugging into your TV.
We’ll update this post later when we have more on the individual channels, but AT&T claims that each tier is not padded out with random music channels or super-niche offerings.
That said, the company acknowledged the lack of CBS and Showtime, though AT&T says it is still working on a deal with the network.
DirecTV Now also doesn’t offer 4K streaming yet, though the company repeatedly made the point that the service is software based and that this is “just the beginning.”
“People expect choice, flexibility… options,” explained AT&T exec John Stankey at the Monday afternoon press event in Manhattan.
He explained that, with more than half of AT&T customers now buying video content on screens other than their TVs, the company took a mobile-first approach to building the DirecTV Now platform.
“Every piece of content can be used on mobile and in the living room,” said Stankey.
Given that AT&T and DirecTV already have a combined pay-TV audience of more than 25 million in the U.S., why is the company selling a service that is more affordable and portable than its current big-ticket products?
According to Stankey, the notion is to “open up a whole new segment of the market” — meaning cord-cutters, cord-nevers, and people with bad credit who can’t currently get traditional pay-TV service.
The hope is to “establish a relationship using DirecTV Now” and then sell these customers on other AT&T products and services.
More to come after we get some hands-on with the service after the press conference.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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