AT&T’s merger with Time Warner (Entertainment) is now complete, and despite repeated promises to antitrust regulators AT&T would not use consolidation as an excuse to raise rates, the company is reportedly doing exactly that on its DirecTV Now online streaming service.

According to a report by Cord Cutters News, most current subscribers will be formally notified this week their rates are going up $10 a month and new customers will be offered only two choices for DirecTV Now packages going forward — a slimmed down Plus package of 40 channels and HBO for $50 a month and a slightly larger Max package with 50 channels bundled with HBO and Cinemax for $70 a month. Both represent fewer channels for more money.

News about big changes for AT&T’s streaming services were first announced by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson in late 2018, telling investors he planned to wring more profit out of DirecTV Now by raising rates and slimming down the number of channels in the remaining packages.

Current customers can keep their current packages indefinitely, but they will pay more starting in April. The $10 rate increase comes on the heels of a $5 rate increase in the summer of 2018, and AT&T has made it clear more price hikes are forthcoming as needed.

AT&T also told Cord Cutters News that DirecTV’s satellite service will soon debut on its own streaming platform, but it won’t come discounted or cheap:

• 65 channel DirecTV package: $93/month
• 85 channel DirecTV package: $110/month
• 105 channel DirecTV package: $124/month
• 125 channel DirecTV package: $135/month

AT&T hopes its simplified menu of offerings for DirecTV Now will prove attractive to subscribers, in part because both packages bundle either AT&T-owned HBO or HBO and Cinemax. But subscribers are also likely to notice the dramatically smaller package of cable channels, now missing AMC, Viacom and Discovery-owned networks. They are also likely to be confused by the forthcoming introduction of DirecTV satellite streaming packages, which will be marketed separately from DirecTV Now. AT&T plans to eventually mothball its satellite fleet and move DirecTV entirely to an internet streaming platform, but will take several years before switching off the last satellite.

AT&T’s DirecTV Now will slim its packages down substantially as early as tomorrow, while raising prices.

An informal FAQ:

Q. When will AT&T make these changes?

A. AT&T is expected to email current customers on or about March 12, 2019 to inform them of the $10 rate hike. At the same time, AT&T is likely to stop signing up new customers for its current DirecTV Now packages and begin offering DirecTV Now Plus or DirecTV Now Max instead. Current customers can expect to see their first bill with the new rates in April.

Q. Will current customers be grandfathered?

A. AT&T plans to tell current customers they can keep their current packages as long as they do not make changes to their account (or cancel), but effective April 12, 2019, rates will increase $10 a month for those subscribed to: Live a Little, Just Right, Go Big, and Gotta Have It.

Q. If I subscribe today to the older packages, can I avoid some of the price increases and channel changes?

A. Yes and no. If AT&T’s schedule holds, today is the last day you will be able to signup for DirecTV Now’s old packages, and you will need to make a payment today and skip the free 7-day trial to lock in these packages or you could face choosing only between Plus and Max after your trial ends. You will pay existing rates for March, but the $10 rate increase will impact you starting in April.

Q. What about the prices for premium channels?

A. If the rumors are true, and we stress these are only rumors at this point, current DirecTV Now customers that already subscribe to premium networks like HBO or Cinemax prior to March 12, will be able to avoid planned rate increases on premium networks that are also supposed to be announced as early as tomorrow. If you sign up today and subscribe to HBO and/or Cinemax, you will pay $5 a month for each going forward. Showtime and/or Starz are also available for $8 a month each going forward. The rumor claims that starting tomorrow, HBO will triple in price to $15 each, with Cinemax, Showtime and Starz supposedly increasing to $11 a month each. These new prices would only apply to grandfathered customers on older packages that want to add a premium network on or after March 12 to their existing package. AT&T would use this new pricing to incentivize customers to abandon their old package in favor of Plus or Max, which bundles HBO and HBO and Cinemax into the base package price. So if you are thinking about subscribing to a premium network and want to keep your old package, you should subscribe today and lock in the current lower price.

Q. What happens to pricing for add-on international channels?

A. If you subscribe to international channels (Vietnamese – $20/mo, Brazilian Portuguese – $25/mo, or Korean – $30/mo) before March 12, your rates stay the same. If you add these channels on or after March 12, you will likely pay more to do so. If you are considering these channels, you may save a lot in the long run subscribing today for at least a month to lock it current prices. If the rate increase does not happen, you can drop the add-on after a month.

Q. What are the biggest differences between the old and new packages?

A. You are getting fewer channels for more money from the new Plus and Max package tiers. DirecTV Now is stripping out popular cable networks from AMC, Discovery-Scripps, and Viacom from the new packages, but bundles HBO in the new Plus package and both HBO and Cinemax in the new Max package. An unofficial new channel lineup of both new packages can be found here.

Q. Why are they raising rates like this?

A. AT&T shareholders have been increasingly critical about the company’s 2015 acquisition of DirecTV. Executives sold Wall Street on the acquisition on the theory that acquiring the country’s largest cable TV programming distributor with 21+ million customers would deliver AT&T’s much smaller U-verse TV (with 4-5 million customers) dramatically better volume discounts on cable TV programming. More importantly, it would help AT&T become a powerhouse in video entertainment and cut through the red tape of getting that programming on AT&T’s mobile products. If you are a cable network’s biggest customer, it helps in negotiations seeking streaming and platform distribution rights.

Stephenson

After the merger, AT&T began de-emphasizing its U-verse brand and even started selling DirecTV satellite service to video-only AT&T customers. DirecTV Now was AT&T’s response to cord-cutting, and its promotional pricing and strong package of channels was customer and regulator friendly. At the same time AT&T was seeking to win regulator approval of its acquisition of Time Warner (Entertainment), it did not hurt to argue AT&T’s prior acquisitions had not hurt the marketplace, and may have even enhanced it, pointing to the DirecTV Now offering in the cord-cutting marketplace.

But Wall Street analysts have often argued AT&T is losing money on DirectTV Now, because the wholesale programming costs plus the distribution and marketing expenses likely exceed the prices AT&T charges. Some analysts are even questioning the wisdom of acquiring DirecTV in the first place, especially as the era of cord-cutting has taken a particularly harsh toll on DirecTV’s satellite subscriber numbers. Just a few weeks after the Justice Department abandoned further court action to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, Stephenson followed through on his commitment to shareholders by preparing to prune back DirecTV Now’s packages and dramatically increases prices at the same time.

“We’re talking $50 to $60,” Stephenson told investors last December. “We’ve learned this product, we think we know this market really, really well. We built a two-million subscriber base. But we were asking this DirecTV Now product to do too much work. So we’re thinning out the content and getting the price point right; getting it to where it’s profitable.”

Stephenson fully expects DirecTV Now will soon shed a large percentage of ‘low value’ customers that subscribed only because they locked in a low price or promotion, telling investors he prefers to deal with high-value customers that appreciate AT&T’s brand and quality, and won’t cancel over price increases. He does not want to deal with customers that chase promotions.

AT&T is also using the changes to reset its video portfolio of products, and the audiences each will target. Those most sensitive to price will be marketed ultra-skinny bundles like AT&T Watch, which can also be used to try and get customers to switch to AT&T wireless. Middle ground customers partially sensitive to price, but want a channel lineup that better reflects what they actually watch will be pushed towards DirecTV Now, which will be marketed as cheaper than cable and a good option for cord-cutters. DirecTV’s forthcoming satellite streaming service will be the new home for customers that gravitated towards DirecTV Now’s higher end bundles. Marketing will focus on customers that want an alternative to cable television, but won’t sacrifice their favorite cable channels just to get a lower bill. These customers will be willing to pay a higher price to have a less-jarring transition from the traditional huge cable TV package to DirecTV’s alternative.

Q. What does AT&T risk doing this?

A. Hundreds of thousands of DirecTV Now subscribers are likely to cancel service as a result of this rate increase, which will leave DirecTV Now at a higher price than many of its competitors. AT&T’s loss will likely deliver a sudden spike of new customer signups for YouTube TV and Hulu Live TV, which are the closest equivalents. Other services like Philo, Vue, and even Sling TV are also likely to grab new customers, albeit in smaller numbers.

AT&T’s biggest threat may turn out to be cable operators — especially Charter Spectrum, which has launched its own response to cable TV cord cutting. Its slimmed down and pick-your-own-channels packages could be more attractive than other streaming services, and bundle all local channels.

More specifics about those options are ‘below the fold’:

… Continue Reading

In a move that clearly signals cord-cutting is taking a toll on Spectrum cable television, Charter Communications today unveiled a new streaming TV service priced to compete with “over the top (OTT)” streaming services like YouTube TV and DirecTV Now.

“Spectrum TV Essentials” will offer a package of 60 national cable networks for $14.99 a month, when the streaming service debuts in March. The lineup avoids costly cable channels focused on sports and will include no local channels.

“Spectrum TV Essentials is a OTT offering designed to provide Spectrum internet-only customers a new low-price, high-value video option,” said Charter CEO Tom Rutledge. “As we began to assemble the rights for this new video service, we received great enthusiasm and encouragement from these key programming partners, who share our view and embrace creating an innovative video offering we believe will resonate with our internet customers.”

Remarkably, one of Charter’s first programming partners for the newest slimmed-down cable TV package is Viacom, notorious for its bouquet of high-priced cable networks. Viacom has been so insistent on regular rate increases and forced bundling of multiple Viacom-owned cable networks, some cable systems like Cable One dropped all Viacom networks from their lineups just a few years ago.

A management change at Viacom apparently included a new willingness to combat cord-cutting.

“Viacom shared its strong belief and research that suggests there is a large untapped opportunity for a low-priced, entertainment-only bundle unencumbered by the high cost of broadcast retransmission consent fees and expensive sports programming,” Rutledge noted.

The 60-channel lineup is heavy on content from Discovery Networks, Viacom, Hallmark, and AMC. News junkies will be unhappy to find CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News are not on the lineup, although lesser-watched BBC World News, Bloomberg, and NewsmaxTV are there.

The full lineup:

A&E, AMC, American Heroes Channel, Animal Planet, AXS TV, BBC America, BBC World News, BET, BET Her, BET Jams, BET Soul, Bloomberg, Cheddar, CLEO TV, CMT, CMT Music, Comedy Central, Cooking Channel, Destination America, Discovery, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, DIY, Food Network, FYI, Game Show Network, Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Drama, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, HDNet Movies, HGTV, HISTORY, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, Logo, MotorTrend Network, MTV, MTV2, MTV Classic, MTV Live, MTVU, NewsmaxTV, Newsy, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Nick Music, NickToons, Outdoor Channel, OWN, Paramount Network, Science Channel, Sundance TV, Teen Nick, TLC, Travel Channel, TV Land, VH1, Viceland, The Weather Channel and WEtv.

There will be no DVR option at launch, but Charter is reportedly testing cloud DVR technology for introduction later.

“We’re thrilled to expand and deepen our relationship with Charter. They share both our commitment to the evolution of the the Pay TV ecosystem as well as our understanding of the changing needs of consumers,” said Bob Bakish, Viacom CEO. “As the video marketplace continues to segment across price points and offerings, we believe a high quality, lower priced option for internet-only subscribers is very important. We’re excited to have our global brands as part of Spectrum TV Essentials at launch.”

Access will initially be available on the desktop through SpectrumTV.com and Spectrum’s Roku app. The service will also be available on iOS and Android phones and tablets, Apple TV, Xbox One, Amazon Kindle Fire, and Samsung Smart TVs.

European broadcasters are frightened at the prospect of seeing viewers and crucial mandatory TV license fees erode away as an invasion of American on-demand streaming from Netflix and Amazon takes its toll on traditional television.

Netflix’s almost limitless budget for original local/in-country productions is threatening to outspend traditional European broadcasters and giving viewers a new reason to stop paying compulsory TV license fees, which do not apply to foreign-owned streaming services.

Unlike in the United States, where non-commercial public broadcaster PBS receives most of its financial support from corporate underwriting and voluntary contributions from viewers and listeners, many European countries finance their national, over-the-air public broadcasting services with a mandatory annual license fee.

In the United Kingdom, for example, a household must pay $200 a year if their home has color TV sets or $68 a year for black and white-only TV sets if they watch the BBC. These fees cover the costs of the BBC’s extensive commercial-free radio and TV service and keep it independent of the British government. That fee is a bargain compared to Denmark, Norway, and Austria where TV license fees exceed $300 US annually.

Enforcement officers using TV detector vans drive through neighborhoods looking for unlicensed TV homes by detecting signals emitting from a switched-on television. Warning letters and a visit from an enforcement officer quickly follow. But as streaming services take hold, it is becoming more difficult for licensing officers to determine if a resident is using their television to watch the BBC, which requires a license, or on-demand content from a streaming service like Netflix, which does not require a license.

It’s a growing issue in the United Kingdom, where TV license cancellations are now rising for the first time in five years, particularly as younger viewers move away from traditional linear-live TV programming. According to the Financial Times, by 2022 Netflix, Amazon, Facebook and Apple could outspend traditional UK networks by a factor of four. Independent of the BBC, Britain’s commercial ITV network is also reporting increasing viewer defections, especially among younger audiences. Traditional pay television, usually delivered by Sky satellite or Virgin’s cable system, is also experiencing dish/cord-cutting as viewers start to abandon traditional TV packages.

(Image courtesy: Financial Times)

UK networks are planning to respond to the threat by building on their current streaming successes, particularly BritBox, a joint venture of BBC Studios and ITV targeting North American audiences with on-demand British television series and original productions. BritBox has attracted a loyal following in the U.S. and Canada willing to pay around $7 a month, effortlessly raising almost half of the amount of a traditional UK TV license from North Americans without the expenses of traditional broadcasting, staffing, and collections. In the UK, a TV license grants viewers automatic access to iPlayer from the BBC, which offers live streams and short-term access to on-demand programming. Both UK broadcasters believe a service like BritBox, offering a more extensive library of older programming and full seasons of TV shows may interest UK audiences more — perhaps enough to pay another $7 a month for access, in addition to their TV license fee.

Other European broadcasters are dabbling in streaming ventures, but currently see less threat from the English-language dominant catalog of content from services like Netflix. In fact, many of those European broadcasters, particularly in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium are earning extra revenue by licensing their native language content, subtitled for English language audiences, to streaming services like Netflix, MHz Choice, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

AT&T shareholders are frustrated. They are not getting the dividend payouts and shareholder value they expected after AT&T put itself $170 billion in debt last year — the highest debt load of any non-financial American corporation.

As AT&T has bet big in recent years on video-related acquisitions, including DirecTV and Time Warner (Entertainment), investors are skeptical AT&T can properly monetize its video business. Many have sold shares after criticizing company executives over the company’s strategy and high debt, driving AT&T’s market capitalization down to around $225 billion, comparable with considerably smaller Verizon Communications.

But no worries, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, has reassured. AT&T expects those investments to yield results this year, helped by forthcoming broad price hikes for AT&T’s consumer services.

“2019 candidly is the money year,” Stephenson said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “This is a year when we get everything rationalized.”

According to AT&T, customers are irrationally paying too little for AT&T’s video-related services, which include DirecTV (~19 million customers) and DirecTV Now — the two-year old streaming service that has attracted nearly two million subscribers.

Stephenson

Although DirecTV has recently been extremely aggressive about offering deep discounts to convince satellite customers to stay, AT&T plans to pull back on those discounts as two million DirecTV customers see their two-year contracts end this year. Instead of granting renewed discounts for signing another contract, AT&T plans to deliver significant rate increases.

“As those customers come due, we’ll get closer to market pricing,” AT&T’s John Donovan told investors at a November investor conference. “We’ll be respectful of our customers, but [prices] will move up.”

That may prove a difficult sell for DirecTV satellite customers, who have recently been abandoning the satellite platform in favor of cheaper streaming TV alternatives. Even with package discounts, DirecTV is the pay television industry’s most expensive provider, collecting an average of $120.36 a month for its TV packages. In contrast, Dish Networks gets an average of $103.99, Charter Spectrum earns $91.14 and Comcast, $84.50.

DirecTV defections, largely over price, have been growing at an accelerated rate, with 1.4 million customers turning their back on the satellite provider over the last two years. Analysts expect AT&T will report 300,000 more lost subscribers in the last three months alone. At that rate, AT&T will lose at least $1 billion in operating profits in 2019 from its declining satellite TV unit alone.

(Image courtesy: WSJ)

DirecTV Now customers, who already absorbed a $5 rate hike last summer, and will face even more rate increases and channel reductions in 2019. Stephenson expects DirecTV Now’s price point to be in the $50-60 range, which means many customers will likely face an average of $10 in rate hikes this year. For AT&T, that would deliver “the right price” and gets the service “to where it is profitable,” according to Stephenson.

But customers are likely to balk if AT&T reduces channel lineups at the same time it raises prices. AT&T has already faced substantial DirecTV Now customer defections after last summer’s rate increase, and the company has also reduced new customer sign-ups by cutting back on new subscriber promotions, which often included a free set-top streaming device. Waiting to pick up exiled streaming and satellite customers are AT&T’s competitors, especially Google. YouTube TV has proved to be a DirecTV Now killer, now charging $40 a month for 60+ channels. It also comes with an unlimited cloud DVR feature and a complete lineup of local channels across most of the country. YouTube TV is reportedly still growing, attracting more than one million customers so far. AT&T executives claim the service is popular only because Google is suspected of subsidizing what they believe to be an unprofitable venture by around $9 a month.

Investors are also unhappy about customers slimming down their TV packages, because average revenue per customer is cut in the process, sometimes dramatically. Wall Street was accustomed to video packages bringing in at least $100 a month. In many cases, that revenue is cut in half after a customer switches to a streaming provider. AT&T hopes investor pressure on those new ventures and ongoing wholesale programming rate increases will both conspire to bring back familiar annual rate hikes for streaming services as well. Programming cost inflation almost feeds itself. As programmers set new wholesale rate records for their networks, other programmers believe there is now room to raise their wholesale rates as well.

Programming costs are not just important for consumers, either. Wholesale programming rate inflation was one of the reasons AT&T spent $49 billion to acquire DirecTV. Volume discounts for DirecTV meant the satellite provider was paying an estimated $20 a month less on programming than AT&T’s own U-verse unit, which had a much smaller customer base. AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner, which owns several popular cable networks, was also a hedge against programming rate increases because AT&T would effectively pay any increases to itself.

(Image courtesy: WSJ)

The Journal reports AT&T executives were unprepared for the speed cord-cutting has taken hold. Most most under-30 have abandoned the concept of paying for live, linear cable television at any price, preferring a combination of on-demand streaming from Netflix, Hulu, and other video streaming services with an over the air antenna to watch local stations for free. Older Americans are gradually following suit.

According to the Journal, AT&T’s latest tactic to slow down customer departures is to make cancellation as difficult as possible:

“There’s no way that we could make the numbers we were told to make,” said Altrina Grant, former manager of a Chicago-area AT&T call center. She said some agents would promise to call back a customer about a request to drop service rather than immediately disconnecting, which would count against their compensation. Irate customers would later call another employee to ask why their request wasn’t honored, she said.

“These reps were getting thousands of dollars because they knew how to manipulate the system,” Ms. Grant said.

Cyrus Evans, a former call-center manager in Waco, Texas, said employees’ pay could swing between $50,000 and $80,000 a year depending on their performance, which was often influenced by how many disconnection requests they could deflect. Mr. Evans said employees often got angry calls from customers who had been promised their service would end, only to receive a bill the next month. He said the incentive structure rewarded bad behavior.

Former AT&T workers said the company launched a new audit team in 2017 to crack down on support staffers making promises they couldn’t keep. Ms. Grant said this initiative led the company to fire some workers but several customer-care executives are still in their jobs.

AT&T disputes these allegations, claiming false promises to customers violate AT&T’s Code of Business Conduct and are “extremely rare.”

Like cable companies, streaming services are not immune to raising rates, and the country’s biggest and most popular streaming service — Netflix — this morning announced its largest rate hike ever.

Most Netflix subscribers will see their monthly rate increase by $2 a month.

Netflix’s rate card effective January 15, 2019 (for new subscribers).

The rate hike will raise at least $100 million a month in revenue and will apply first to new subscribers, and will gradually apply to all 58 million current U.S. subscribers over the next three months, as well as those in Latin America where subscriptions are paid in U.S. dollars (except in Mexico and Brazil, where rates remain unchanged). Rates for the 78 million Netflix subscribers outside of the U.S. are not expected to change immediately, partly due to ongoing promotional spending and marketing efforts to boost subscriber numbers overseas.

Wall Street had been increasingly pessimistic about Netflix’s revenue and profit projections because of ongoing increases in spending to finance an avalanche of original Netflix productions. The company’s stock price dropped by 21 percent, from a peak of $423.21 last June to $332.94 just before the market opened this morning. Netflix’s chief content officer told the media last spring about 85% of the company’s estimated $8 billion in content spending for 2018 was for original TV shows, movies, and other productions. By summer, Netflix had $12 billion in debt before borrowing another $2 billion in October. But that debt never changed Netflix’s plans to premiere 1,000 new movies and TV series in 2018, with an even larger number of productions scheduled for 2019.

Netflix has been pushed towards producing its own content as movie studios and studio-owned television production companies raise contract renewal prices on Netflix or end those contracts altogether, bringing content back to those studios as they prepare to launch paid streaming services of their own. WarnerMedia, Disney, and NBCUniversal are all planning launches over the next 24 months, while other existing services like CBS All Access and Hulu continue to beef up their own viewing menus, often with shows that were formerly found on Netflix.

Netflix is also depending on a growing international audience for its offerings, and has expanded original productions in many languages to find that global audience. Netflix usually benefits from much lower production costs for shows filmed overseas, and English language subscribers have surprisingly embraced dubbed and/or subtitled content at levels beyond Netflix’s expectations. Back in North America, the massive increase in demand for original content by Netflix and its competitors has made it possible for production companies, directors, writers, and talent to command dramatically higher salaries, raising Netflix’s expenses.

Investors cheered today’s price increase, causing its stock price to rise at least 6% in early trading. Wall Street believes Netflix is now nearly immune to cancellations over its price, which is still below the monthly retail price of HBO. But this morning’s announcement does represent the largest rate increase ever for the 12-year old streaming service.

Netflix will also use some of the additional revenue from the rate hike to pay down its substantial debt. Few expect any backlash reminiscent of Netflix’s 2011 decision to raise prices and unbundle its DVD-rental-by-mail service from video streaming, which resulted in a 60 percent rate increase for customers seeking both streaming and mail rental options. Netflix lost 600,000 subscribers after that announcement, initially making the company more cautious about future rate increases.