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DirecTV is basically dropping their service of getting the signal to you - no satellite dishes, no receivers, no dvrs, no installation at your house, much less support because you're using all your own hardware.

YOU are paying for your own internet costs to get the service to you.

And DirecTV is just giving you a discount of approx. $50/month for you to do this. How much does your internet service cost? $50 or more? It seems like a wash or a bad deal.

I disagree with that logic. I already pay for internet and DirecTV. Getting rid of a dish for a streaming option saves me $50/month, straight up. It's not like I have to add internet to get it.
 
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What's the upside here? Cord-cutters still have a "cord" in that they need internet and will subscribe to DirectTV (a content provider, that's essentially a cable company.) Seems like all this does is get around FCC regulations but in the end you have the same thing—a set top box and a monthly subscription. What's the difference between that and cable?

But instead of paying the cable company for too many channels you don't want... you pay someone else!

That's better, right? :)

I never really understood these "over-the-top" channel packages.

You're gonna be paying the cable company for internet anyway... why not get the channels from them?
 
A la carte has existed for years, you can get any show you want a la carte from iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google, wherever.

Correct. And in which case customers will pay around $30 per show (assuming they buy a season pass). As people have mentioned, when you want to buy less of something the per unit costs go up. It's not much different than buying one can of Coke vs a twelve pack vs buying in bulk.

It's just bad math when people look at their 200 channel cable package for $100 and assume that, if split out, all their channels should cost $0.50 each.
 
I was waiting for the details on this but it looks like my PS Vue service laughs at this offering. All the channels I want, Cloud DVR, pause / rewind / start over, works on iPhone, iPad, Mac, PS4 and works as a provider in apps. Looks like Sony knocked it out the park first time. It's a shame...Apple should have been able to match the PS Vue service themselves but they decided to give up and let third parties cover it for them. Typical of the Tim Cook era.

But you get 24/7 Taylor Swift with Directvnow!! ;)
 
I see a lot of people bitching about rental fees? I can't remember the last time I paid for my equipment with Comcast or ATT. Most give you that stuff for free with bundles for at least 2 years, and will continue to keep them for free after that.

1gb internet, 140 channels, 4 HD DVRs, HBO, Showtime, Redzone is $140 after taxes. I honestly don't think I could beat that.
 
Are you a true OTA cord cutter? Or do you use Hulu, Netflix, Amazon etc to get your content?

OTA cord cutter? No I don't just consume OTA content (heck I don't even have an OTA antenna). I have a Gigabit Fiber connection from a local ISP (not a cable company), I have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (because of Prime, I wouldn't pay for it by it's self). So for $19 a month I get all the content I want minus a few shows (and most of those end up on one of the above in a year or two). And yes you could argue I pay some portion of my internet bill as well for TV, but I have the Internet for work primarily (I work from home). Either way, I'm paying a small fraction of what I paid AT&T 6 or 7 years ago when I had U-Verse for Internet and TV (around $225 a month), and it was when I was like enough is enough. I haven't looked back.
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I forgot about that!

Yes... non-cable internet doesn't come from the cable company. Sorry!

But does your gigabit fiber offer channels?

Nope.. Just a fiber hand off to my router.
 
what bothers me the most is HBO charging widely different subscription prices based on what service you use.

HBO won't be really. They will have a wholesale price for 3rd parties to resell access. They will also provide a recommended price to sell at but ultimately it's up to the service to decide what to sell it for. If they want to charge above the recommended price they could but they could also sell for less to attract people to their service. They could even decide to sell at a loss. HBO won't care as they get the same no matter what
 
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Nope.. Just a fiber hand off to my router.

Well your case obviously isn't what I was referring to. :D

I was speaking to the people who pay for Comcast Internet along with Comcast TV channels or whatever.

But yeah... for you with separate internet... you can choose whatever TV service you want!

I gotta ask... does this DirectTV thing interest you? Do you not have any TV channels at all?
 
I see a lot of people bitching about rental fees? I can't remember the last time I paid for my equipment with Comcast or ATT. Most give you that stuff for free with bundles for at least 2 years, and will continue to keep them for free after that.

1gb internet, 140 channels, 4 HD DVRs, HBO, Showtime, Redzone is $140 after taxes. I honestly don't think I could beat that.

I pay $174 a month (including taxes) for DirecTV with HBO/Showtime/STARZ, and 3 HD boxes. Then I pay $50 a month for Internet from Time Warner. On my DTV bill, $25 is an "advanced receiver fee" and $14 is for the other 2 clients. So right now, I'm paying $40 a month JUST for equipment. With this new service, I can have basically every channel I need plus HBO for that same $40.
 
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Aside from the 2 stream limit and potential poor PQ this is an awesome deal. I don't think I've seen a cable package with that many channels for less than $40 since the 80's.
 
ABC
CBS
FOX
NBC

Above are the network owned properties and their respective markets. I doubt CBS will be included, since they have their own service, that is the case for me in Chicago even though it is a CBS property.

We'll have to wait for DirecTV/AT&T to confirm.
Wow, this is a lot more complicated than I realized. No wonder they can never get any streaming deals done. Dang. Looks like I'm out of luck for any owned stations cutting deals.
 
I pay $174 a month (including taxes) for DirecTV with HBO/Showtime/STARZ, and 3 HD boxes. Then I pay $50 a month for Internet from Time Warner. On my DTV bill, $25 is an "advanced receiver fee" and $14 is for the other 2 clients. So right now, I'm paying $40 a month JUST for equipment. With this new service, I can have basically every channel I need plus HBO for that same $40.

it all boils down to channel lineup. I know it won't have CBS, so that's an extra $5.99 I think
 
But instead of paying the cable company for too many channels you don't want... you pay someone else!

That's better, right? :)

I never really understood these "over-the-top" channel packages.

You're gonna be paying the cable company for internet anyway... why not get the channels from them?
In my case, getting the channels I want for 25-35 dollars is better than the 65 minimum I'd have to pay my local provider. I don't understand how some people don't get the value proposition of these OTT services.

Of course, your viewing habits and mileage will vary. I don't want 250 channels for 120 bucks. It actually is a great deal for some (a lot?).

For me, it's no contest.
 
In my case, getting the channels I want for 25-35 dollars is better than the 65 minimum I'd have to pay my local provider. I don't understand how some people don't get the value proposition of these OTT services.

Of course, your viewing habits and mileage will vary. I don't want 250 channels for 120 bucks. It actually is a great deal for some (a lot?).

For me, it's no contest.

How do you get just the channels you want?
 
In my case, getting the channels I want for 25-35 dollars is better than the 65 minimum I'd have to pay my local provider. I don't understand how some people don't get the value proposition of these OTT services.

Of course, your viewing habits and mileage will vary. I don't want 250 channels for 120 bucks. It actually is a great deal for some (a lot?).

For me, it's no contest.

I pay $180 for internet and TV. I get a ton of channels. But looking at the channels I actually watch religiously, it might be about 10. All of which are going to be available on DirecTVNow. I do lose CBS and CW, but hope they'll come to an agreement. So you're absolutely right. I mean I occasionally watch some of the other channels I have, but the ones I "need," I'll be covered. So same here, no contest.

How do you get just the channels you want?

I don't want to speak for him, but I assume he meant paying $35 for DirecTVNow and getting those channels he wants.
 
I think these tv services are overplaying their hand.

This is way too expensive for what I'm prepared to pay. And I'm picking in not alone.

These tv/film execs need to sharpen up, or risk being dropped by the wayside.

Out of curiosity, what do you think would be more fair? We recently cut the cord at home for Sling and it's be fantastic. We're saving roughly $105 per month and still getting a vast majority of channels we would watch. Spending the extra $10 for even more channels is a no brainer in my opinion.
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I do lose CBS and CW, but hope they'll come to an agreement.

CBS is stubborn, but look into what you can get OTA. I'm in Central NJ and easily pick up Philadelphia and NY CBS for free.
 
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You might. I wouldn't. Neither would others.

Don't care about sports. I care about watching only the networks I like with quality programming (I could count those on two hands) and the ability to stop and start subscriptions to them when I want to based on their content. Not have to jump through ridiculous cable hoops to negotiate a better deal, or be upsold to other products.

MSO packages are full of low-quality drivel that hardly anyone watches, yet you have to subsidize. Maybe channel costs would come down if the owners didn't keep padding them with pointless offshoots purely for additional ad revenue.

This is where people's thinking is wrong though. Its not just the small 'crap' channels that are subsidised they all are. Lets take AMC as an example. During prime time in 2015 they were the 16th most watched channels with an Average of 1.4million viewers. Over 90million households have paytv so the AMC viewers are a minority. Outside of ESPN the most watched cable channel was TBS which averaged 1.87million followed by USA on 1.85million. So they are getting carriage fees from like 90million people who aren't watching their channel. Even if the carriage fees are peanuts as they are with AMC they make more than they would going direct. Some of those 1.4mill just wouldn't pay as they only watch because it's there and others would be price senative but the fewer subscribers they have the more they need to charge to make the same and that will drive more away.

We also have the fact that channels you may consider crap and a waste of your sub money others will enjoy, just as channels you enjoy may be things that others resent paying for. Bundling is a system that may seem like we are paying for things we don't want as we get things we don't want but infact it's a system that reduces the cost to us for things we do want by spreading the load. So we get cheaper access to what we want and get a bunch of free things which don't hurt us if we just ignore them. The only way bundling hurts people is if the channels they consume is like a couple of channels only
 
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