AT&T finally shutters disastrous DirecTV Now, AT&T TV Now service
posted Sunday Jan 24, 2021 by Scott Ertz
Since AT&T purchased DirecTV, they have made a lot of questionable decisions. The struggles have been so severe that AT&T is already considering selling the brand. However, one of the more disastrous decisions for the DirecTV brand has got to be the streaming cable service, DirecTV Now. Now, the company is shuttering the service and moving customers to its own competitor, AT&T TV.
When the DirecTV Now service was first released, it had a ton of customers sign up. This was in large part to massive promotional plans, including being offered for free to AT&T Mobility customers on certain plans. As these promotions expired, customers fled the service almost as quickly as they had joined. Because of the huge failure, the company went so far as to lie about the subscriber-base, leading to a lawsuit from investors. For those who stuck it out after promotions ended, they were rewarded with continued and massive price hikes, leading to another couple rounds of customers leaving.
In a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, the company renamed the service to AT&T TV Now, but this name didn't help, because pricing was still not competitive with cable. In fact, in most cases, the service was more expensive than cable and offered less channels for that higher price. In addition, the name itself wasn't great, as the company also has a competing service called AT&T TV. Which one is which? It often seemed like even AT&T didn't know.
How, DirecTV Now and AT&T TV Now are things of the past, with new customers not being able to sign up for service. The AT&T TV Now website now says that the service is unavailable for new customers and advertises the AT&T TV plans instead. There is a note stating that existing customers will still be able to access the service.
