AT&T TV WILL REACH THE WHOLE UNITED STATES IN FEBRUARY 2020

AT&T TV will go live in the whole United States in February 2020, according to AT&T’s CEO of Communications, Jeff McElfresh. Speaking at the Barclays Global TMT Conference, McElfresh said that, once launched, along with HBO Max, the service will spearhead a “market reorientation” at AT&T.

“Our growth agenda is on fiber, in our entertainment group, and on AT&T TV,”  the executive indicated. He also said AT&T TV will feature customer acquisition costs of about half of what the group currently spends to bring on legacy satellite TV subscribers for Directv. He assured the content lineup will be “every bit as good” as what AT&T currently offers through Directv and U-verse, and that the user experience is “future leaning”.

AT&T TV is currently being beta tested in 16 United States markets: Orange, Riverside (California); Fort Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach (Florida); Topeka, Wichita (Kansas); Minneapolis (Minnesota); St. Louis, Springfield (Missouri); New York (New York); Corpus Christi, El Paso, Odessa (Texas); and Seattle, Tacoma (Washington).

It is a product that is arriving just as video subscriber losses in AT&T’s traditional pay TV products have peaked, according to McElfresh. AT&T lost approximately 1.16 million premium video subscribers (Directv and U-verse) and another 195,000 AT&T TV subscribers for a total of about 1.358 million during the quarter. The losses were dramatically higher than the 297,000 total net clients lost in the year ago quarter.