AT&T to Launch Low-Cost Streaming Service
April 19 2018 - 10:49PM
Dow Jones News
By Drew FitzGerald
AT&T Inc. plans to launch a "skinny bundle" of television
channels without sports that will cost $15 a month, one of the
lowest prices available for a nationwide streaming live TV
plan.
The service, called AT&T Watch, was announced Thursday by
Chief Executive Randall Stephenson, who used his time on the
witness stand in a high-profile antitrust case to pitch the new
plan.
AT&T Wireless subscribers would get the service free, Mr.
Stephenson said. He didn't specify which channels it would include
or when it would be available. The CEO said he hopes to launch the
service in the next few weeks.
AT&T is in court to dispute the allegation that it will use
its ownership of Time Warner Inc. to hurt pay-TV competition.
Unveiling a low-cost plan helps the company's case. The company has
proposed buying Time Warner for $85 billion.
As consumers have cut the cable cord and the smartphone market
has matured, companies have been pushing streaming video services
and bundling video with wireless plans. Dish Network's Sling TV has
plans that start as low as $20 a month. T-Mobile US Inc. offers
free Netflix to most wireless subscribers.
It isn't the first time AT&T's boss decided how to price a
TV bundle. The company launched its first streaming video service,
DirecTV Now, in 2016 for $35 a month, a decision that ate into its
corporate parent's margins.
"We weren't originally contemplating launching with something
quite so bold and compelling" before the launch, AT&T executive
Devin Merrill said in testimony earlier in the trial in discussing
the DirecTV Now service. "But it became clear that Randall
Stephenson was leaning in and had an idea to launch boldly and
weighed in on the price point for the number of channels."
The decision worked out in terms of scale. DirecTV Now had more
than one million subscribers last year, helping offset subscriber
losses from the satellite TV service. But the streaming service's
success has come at the expense of its corporate parent's overall
profitability.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 19, 2018 22:34 ET (02:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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