DirecTV has confirmed that it has lost subscribers as a result of its dispute with Disney. The confirmation came from DirecTV’s chief marketing officer Vince Torres during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference earlier today.
While Torres didn’t provide any further insight into the losses, the exec did make clear that they aren’t “immaterial.” Torres also explained that customers migrating from one service to another over lost channels is understandable given the frustration involved.
While not great news for DirecTV, Torres did make clear that the company has acted in the way it has to better equip the company over the long-term. If, for example, DirecTV had agreed to Disney’s demands, it wouldn’t be able to offer the differentiating product it wants to in the future.
As Torres explains, the goal in this dispute is to find a way to offer customers more choice and greater flexibility. Instead of bundling all channels together and forcing customers to pay for networks they don’t want to get access to networks they do want, DirecTV is hoping to offer more genre-focused packages.
While this approach might result in lost subscribers today, as it now appears to have, the aim is to offer enough choice and flexibility to appeal to a much greater number of customers in the future.
One of the main takeaways from the comments today is that this dispute, unlike most others, isn’t just about fees. Instead, it is more about what a DirecTV live TV package might look like in the future.
As we already know, this dispute also came with an added anticompetitive caveat. Direct previously confirmed that Disney wanted the company to “waive all claims that Disney’s behavior is anti-competitive.” A caveat DirecTV wasn’t willing to agree to, and one which led DirecTV to file an FCC complaint against Disney.
Leave a Reply