A&E, History, & Lifetime At Risk of Being Dropped By DIRECTV NOW, DirecTV, & AT&T U-Verse
A&E’s contract with AT&T is about to expire meaning that customers are at risk of losing all programming from 10 A&E owned channels including A&E, History, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, FYI, Viceland, LRW, History en Espanol, Military History, and Crime + Investigation. This would mean no more Live PD or Dance Moms.
The current carriage agreement between the companies expires on April 30th.
The carriage dispute would affect customers with DirecTV, AT&T U-Verse, as well as streaming services DIRECTV NOW and AT&T WatchTV. While the channels were recently removed in their new DIRECTV NOW PLUS and MAX plans, those grandfathered into the existing Live a Little, Just Right, Go Big, and Even More plans include A&E, History, and Lifetime.
Fortunately for streamers, the channels are available on other streaming services like Philo ($16) who calls A&E an investor, as well as Fubo, Sling TV, and Hulu Live TV.
| AT&T TV NOW | AT&T WatchTV | Fubo | Hulu | Philo | Sling TV | PS Vue | YouTube | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| “Just Right” | “PLUS” | “WatchTV” | “fubo” | “Hulu Live TV” | “Base” | “Orange” | “Blue” | “Access” | “YouTube TV” | ||
| Sign Up | Sign Up | Sign Up | Free Trial | Sign Up | Free Trial | Get 50% Off | Get 50% Off | Sign Up | Sign Up | ||
| $74.99 | $54.99 | $15 | $74.99 | $76.99 | $16 | $40 | $40 | $50 | $72.99 | ||
| A&E | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | - | - | |
| FYI | - | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | + $6 | + $6 | - | - | |
| History | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | - | - | |
| Lifetime | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | - | - | |
| Lifetime Movie Network | - | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | + $6 | + $6 | - | - | |
| Vice TV | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | - | - | |
This is the second major carriage dispute in as many weeks for AT&T. In late March, Viacom channels were nearly removed from DIRECTV NOW and AT&T WatchTV. An agreement right after the deadline not only saw the channels remain on AT&T-owned services, but saw them added to DIRECTV NOW PLUS and MAX plans.
Just last week, AT&T dropped NFL Network from DIRECTV NOW and AT&T U-Verse saying “as we continue to manage content costs, we could not reach an agreement with the NFL to continue to carry those channels.”