AT&T TV NOW lost subscribers in the first quarter, even though coronavirus is keeping people at home, and dependent on access to online services, including streaming services.
AT&T TV NOW losing subscribers is nothing new. While once one of the most subscribed-to live TV streaming services in the US, the company has continually increased prices, while at the same time, reduced channels. Over time, this has eroded the service’s user base away with a chunk of subscribers leaving every quarter.
AT&T has now announced its latest quarterly results. In doing so, the company confirmed a loss of 897,000 video subscribers in the first three months of the year. This figure is related to the company’s AT&T TV, DIRECTV, and U-verse video services – what AT&T refers to as its “premium TV” solutions. When it comes to AT&T TV NOW, the number of subscribers fell by 138,000 during the quarter. When taken together, AT&T lost just over one million TV-related subscribers during the first three months.
AT&T attributed the current quarterly AT&T TV NOW subscriber decline to “higher prices and less promotional activity.”
COVID-19 lockdown orders haven’t helped AT&T TV NOW
With the world the subject of a pandemic, the need and use of online services, including streaming services, has skyrocketed. For example, Netflix just posted its latest quarterly results, confirming more than 15 million new subscribers during the first three months. This is in contrast to the 7 million the company expected to gain when it made its forecast in January. The doubling of its initial expectation is evidence of just how much growth some streaming services have experienced in the past few weeks.
AT&T TV NOW was not one of them. With the company once again confirming another quarterly loss, to add to the long list of quarterly losses, it would seem that even coronavirus has not stopped the service from losing subscribers. While the 138,000 is less than the 219,000 AT&T TV NOW lost in the previous quarter, it is still in line with the rate at which the company is losing paid customers in general.
For example, in the same quarter last year, AT&T TV NOW lost 83,000 subscribers. Therefore in spite of losing over half a million since then, it still lost twice as many subscribers in Q1 2020 than it did in Q1 2019.
Source: AT&T
