Jul 25, 2017

AT&T's Internet TV service nears 500K users as traditional video business weakens

Ina Fried

Mike Mozart / Flickr Creative Commons

AT&T said Tuesday that it now has nearly 500,000 subscribers in its Internet-based DirecTV Now video service. That comes amid continued losses in its traditional DirecTV video service.

DirecTV Now also faces a host of Internet-based competition, including Hulu, Dish Networks' Sling, Sony's PlayStation Vue and Google's YouTube TV. Sling leads the back, according to Ad Age, with an estimated 1.7 million subscribers, while Sony has around 450,000. Nielsen said earlier today it plans to start counting Hulu and YouTube TV along with the other leading TV services.

Earnings up, Revenue down: Overall, AT&T posted per-share earnings 79 cents, a nickel ahead of expectation and up nearly 10 percent from the prior year. Revenues, though were down a bit from a year-ago, to $39.8 billion amid weakness in both wireline and consumer wireless.

Phone business tough: AT&T said it added 2.3 million wireless customers in the U.S., but as has been the case for a couple years now, nearly all the gains came from connected cars and other non-phone devices.

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  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 12:30 p.m. ET: 885,687 — Total deaths: 44,216 — Total recoveries: 185,447 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 12:30 p.m. ET: 190,089 — Total deaths: 4,127 — Total recoveries: 7,141 — Map.
  3. Federal government latest: Vice President Mike Pence said that White House modeling suggests "Italy may be the most comparable area to the United States" in terms of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
  4. State updates: Washington and California appear to have slowed their surges of new cases — Florida cases have been doubling the past four days, approaching 7,000.
  5. China: The coronavirus could threaten D.C.'s bipartisan China consensus.
  6. 2020 update: Bernie Sanders urges Wisconsin to delay April 7 primary.
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Pence: Coronavirus impact in U.S. may be "most comparable" to Italy

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