AT & T TV Launches 10 Test Markets for National OTT Bundle Deployment – Deadline

AT & T TV, an upscale bunch of channels with a cloud-based digital recorder, has been launched in 10 test markets in California, Kansas, Missouri, Florida and Texas, in anticipation of ############################################################ 39, a national rollout expected by the end of 2019.

The telecommunications giant began offering this service Monday in Orange and Riverside counties in California, as well as in West Palm Beach, Florida; Topeka and Wichita, KS; St. Louis and Springfield, MO; and Corpus Christi, El Paso and Odessa, TX. A nationwide rollout is expected by the end of 2019.

CEO Randall Stephenson predicted the new service would become the "workaholic" of the company's pay-line lineup in the coming years.

AT & T also operates U-Verse and DirecTV cable television systems, as well as the low-cost Watch offering. In his interview with Wall Street analysts at last month's second quarter earnings call, Stephenson said that operational focus will be increasingly focused on AT & T TV. In an eloquent gesture, the company has just renamed DirecTV Now – the product derived from DirecTV on the Internet – as AT & T Now. In 2015, AT & T spent $ 67.1 billion to acquire DirecTV.

"We really expect a lot from this product," said Stephenson. "We will learn from the pilot project and then expand to other cities during the year."

Unlike AT & T Now, AT & T TV requires a contract. With a two-year contract, prices range from $ 60 to $ 80 a month without access to the Internet, for five different levels of service. Local stations are not yet available in all markets.

According to Stephenson, the new service is a more efficient way for the company to approach the pay-TV market. "It literally takes the cost of acquiring customers and halves them," he said during the call for results. "And the beauty of that is that you can start to solve a fundamental problem with the current linear TV industry, the price, but the cost of content is growing."

AT & T had two major truck battles this summer, one with CBS, which was solved a few weeks ago, and a permanent stalemate with Nexstar Media Group involving about 120 local TV channels in 100 markets. Like all pay-TV operators, the company has had to deal with tighter choices for consumers and higher fees charged by programmers.

At the same time, AT & T continues to digest the acquisition of Time Warner for $ 81 billion and strengthens its competitor in the endless war, HBO Max.