AT&T announced new financial revenue and profit targets for each of the next three years, during which it will pay off the remaining debt from its $80-billion acquisition of Time Warner in 2018, said Mediapost. The company also committed to reviewing its portfolio for businesses that might make sense to sell or spin off, implementing regular stock buybacks, and making no major acquisitions.
Furthermore, it announced a plan to add two more directors to its 13-member board, and to separate its CEO and Chairman roles once the current holder of those titles, Randall Stephenson, retires.
AT&T reported that it lost a total of 1.36 million pay-TV subscribers in the third quarter of this year, including 1.2 million Directv and U-verse subscribers, and 195,000 AT&T TV Now clients. That works out to a loss of nearly 20,000 paid subscribers per day. The company blamed the Directv and U-verse losses on “customers rolling off promotional discounts, programmer disputes and competition, as well as lower gross adds due to the continued focus on adding higher-value customers”.
In early 2019, AT&T projected an upturn in TV Now subscribers in the second half, only to reverse that later in the year, saying losses would continue through year-end. It blamed the third quarter TV Now losses on higher prices and less promotional activity.
As for this period’s financials, revenue declined 2.5%, to $44.6 billion, versus analysts’ expectation of $45.1 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was $15.1 billion, down 0.9% and slightly missing analysts’ expectation of $15.3 billion.