It’s been a really rough year for AT&T and it seems the bad news is not letting up. The company reported they lost another 195,000 AT&T TV NOW subscribers in the third quarter and 1.16 million traditional pay TV subscribers between the DIRECTV satellite TV and U-Verse services. This leaves AT&T TV NOW with just 1.1 million subscribers, from a peak of 1.8 million last year.
It seems the company was prepared for the disappointing results, as AT&T CFO John Stephens issued a warning to investors in September, sharing that ”the company expects an incremental 300,000 to 350,000 premium video losses above the previous quarter’s premium video results.”
In addition to price increases earlier this year, many of the losses were the result of several carriage disputes over the summer which led to contentious negotiations and blackouts of both CBS and Nexstar affiliates. In September, there was the threat of a another standoff with Disney (ABC, ESPN, & Freeform) and Sinclair before it was resolved.
Next quarter doesn’t seem like it will get much better, considering the fact that AT&T announced unexpected price hikes to their AT&T TV NOW PLUS, MAX, and legacy DIRECTV NOW plans. Legacy customers have seen as much as a 50% price increase since the start of the year.