DirecTV Now Lost 267K Subscribers Last Quarter, Partly Due to End of Apple TV Offer

[grobik]

I've bounced around with all of them.
Sling: best price. Few channels and have to add on too many extras.
Dtvn: most channels in one bundle. Also C-SPAN and $5 HBO.
YouTube TV: good DVR and best interface. Spotty channel selection.
Philo: no local networks. But cheap BBC and science and Nick Jr.
Hulu: good Apple TV TV app integration but still not a great lineup.
Psvue: most TV everywhere app logins. Missing Viacom. Only one CNN let's you sign in with.


Right now I'm doing PS Vue base package and Philo for the Viacom channels. All in about$60. Then hulu regular with no ads. Curiosity stream and I pay for pbs all access for $5. So just under $70. I might go back to YouTube. Give up the app logins with PS Vue for the DVR features on YouTube.

 

[ravenstar]

This increased DirecTV Now's "Live a Little" plan from $35/month to $40/month, matching rival services like Hulu with Live TV, which starts at $40/month, and YouTube TV, which also raised to $40/month to compete with Hulu.

Since when was raising prices a competitive tactic?

 

[hinesmj]

I've wanted to ditch cable but with Spectrum's new pricing, there's a bit of a wash for my needs in terms of pricing. And maybe that's just for the first year or so. To me, it's not worth the hassle of buying Apple TVs or Rokus for all the TVs and have them suck up my bandwidth just to have 2.5 Men streaming in the background while I cook supper.

Also, not counting Hulu Live, Spectrum is the only way I can catch local channels. And Hulu was just added a couple of months ago.

YouTube TV is pretty good and offers local channels. I've been using it for about 4 months and I love it.

 

[Pheebers]

I've bounced around with all of them.
Sling: best price. Few channels and have to add on too many extras.
Dtvn: most channels in one bundle. Also C-SPAN and $5 HBO.
YouTube TV: good DVR and best interface. Spotty channel selection.
Philo: no local networks. But cheap BBC and science and Nick Jr.
Hulu: good Apple TV TV app integration but still not a great lineup.
Psvue: most TV everywhere app logins. Missing Viacom. Only one CNN let's you sign in with.

Which is the best for letting you skip commercials? We tried PSVue and then switched to DTVN for the Apple TV offer, and we're pretty miserable with the interface and not being able to fast forward.

I'm not a TV watcher much, but the shows my family watches are on MSNBC, Food Network, Spike, and E if that matters.

 

[mic j]

The loss of subscribers is less about the Apple TV deal and more about the inconsistent and unreliability of their streaming service. The overall user interface is better than most but if it hiccups, pixelates or just plain old doesn’t work because of a service outage than what is the point. Further, their DVR remains in beta and understandably so. It is completely unreliable and often records but gives an error on playback. AT&T’s response to any issue is to give you a $5 credit. Sorry, I don’t want a credit, I want a reliable streaming service which I now have with Sony PS VUE. It’s user interface sucks but it’s reliable.

That was my experience with Directv Now as well (DVR was not available at the time I tried it). And the cost of my DirecTv service, with a good DVR, picture quality and reliability, is worth the small increase in cost.

 

[grobik]

Which is the best for letting you skip commercials? We tried PSVue and then switched to DTVN for the Apple TV offer, and we're pretty miserable with the interface and not being able to fast forward.

I'm not a TV watcher much, but the shows my family watches are on MSNBC, Food Network, Spike, and E if that matters.

Unfortunately none are really. They've gotten good at embedding ads. YouTube for me is the best handler of this though. I think it's the way they do DVR. When you DVR it splices the show and adds its own commercials on. It's like watching Hulu with ads. So rather than watching a 5 minute stream of local ads it's the same one or two Every break.

 

[deeddawg]

Their service was terrible. Tons of channels, but it buffered nonstop on all devices. Wired to my TV (gigabit service) and it STILL buffered constantly. I switched to YouTube TV.. I never buffer. Literally never.

Weird. I never see buffering, and I'm on 20Mbps at the weekend place (gigabit fiber at home).
[doublepost=1548961000][/doublepost]

Well, you can watch local channels OTA. They are free. An antenna is like $40 these days. But I get what you're saying.

Assuming you live close enough to the transmitters and/or don't live in a hole.

My home is surrounded by trees and sits between two ridges -- even in the suburbs of a metro area and my OTA reception is pretty bad -- with a $70 antenna in the attic. I plan to try it mounted externally when weather permits, but for now OTA isn't an option. At our rural weekend cabin I'd need a roof mounted rotater and high gain antenna since the broadcast stations are scattered directionally and at distances varying from 30-60 miles.
[doublepost=1548961627][/doublepost]

HULU Live baby!! FTW

I do need to look into that.

How is the UI for channel guide and seeing what's on? I have the basic hulu service (BlackFriday year-for-99-cents-a-month) deal and frankly the UI seems to waste a lot of screen space.

I'll get around to trying the one-week-trial sometime, just want to ensure I'll have the time to really work it through its paces in the week.
[doublepost=1548961829][/doublepost]

Ya I see that now. I had looked into it a few months ago when the requirement for Satellite was still there.

Must have been quite a while ago.

No satellite requirement in December 2017.
[doublepost=1548962042][/doublepost]

If I have to deal with a customer service rep to add or cancel anything on a service, not for me. The only time I want to chat with customer service, a problem. If too many chats with customer service, not for me. Narrows down the field of providers I will do business with.

You're in luck. You can cancel the service from the website and escape having to talk to a live person.

[doublepost=1548962382][/doublepost]

I've bounced around with all of them.
Sling: best price. Few channels and have to add on too many extras.
Dtvn: most channels in one bundle. Also C-SPAN and $5 HBO.
YouTube TV: good DVR and best interface. Spotty channel selection.
Philo: no local networks. But cheap BBC and science and Nick Jr.
Hulu: good Apple TV TV app integration but still not a great lineup.
Psvue: most TV everywhere app logins. Missing Viacom. Only one CNN let's you sign in with.

Which of the above allow pausing live TV, ideally with ability to back up / replay?

That's the only big thing I miss on DTVN. I share the one sub between home and a weekend cabin, so streaming service is a big plus on cost for my scenario. I get the full set of local channels here, imagine that'd be an annoyance if I was somewhere that didn't get them.

No, my DTVN service isn't perfect, but it gets the job done for the stuff we watch. We don't DVR much, but what I do record seems to work fine. Picture quality and responsiveness is fine at the weekend place with 20Mbps service and of course is great at home with gigabit fiber service.

Hope to see the providers keep competing.

 

[BaracksPhallusPalace]

anything AT&T pushes these days is garbage that isn't competitive on a pricing, or features. Their prepaid wireless service is horrific, and is trapped in the early 2000's with it's complete lack of modern features such as wifi calling or VoLTE, meanwhile I can go over to MetroPCS and get unlimited w/ everything you would get with a T-Mobile postpaid plan for the same price. DTVNow is no different... I've been happily using YouTube TV and for $35/mo... it's been rock solid and it has everything I want to watch with the exception of the NFL network, which is only an issue for a 1/4 of the year.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Weird. I never see buffering, and I'm on 20Mbps at the weekend place (gigabit fiber at home).
[doublepost=1548961000][/doublepost]

Maybe it's better now, I don't know. When I used it, it was a total joke. The 20 hours of DVR is a joke too. That's why I decided to stick with YouTube TV. Between that and ESPN+ I can watch any sporting event I want.

 

[deeddawg]

Maybe it's better now, I don't know. When I used it, it was a total joke. The 20 hours of DVR is a joke too. That's why I decided to stick with YouTube TV. Between that and ESPN+ I can watch any sporting event I want.

I've been using it over a year now and hadn't seen the buffering issue you describe, even on 20Mbps service, so it must have been quite a while ago.

I don't DVR much stuff, largely since so much is available on-demand these days. What I do DVR gets watched within a day or two -- so 20 hours content hasn't been an issue. Different needs for different folks.

I’ve checked out YouTubeTV and like being able to pause live TV — but they’re missing various channels that my wife enjoys... That makes them a non-starter. Happy Wife, Happy Life.

Edit: also tried out Hulu Live TV. Not allowed to use one subscription for home and our weekend place. Seems nice otherwise but since the ability to use one subscription at two locations is a core requirement for us, Hulu is also out of the running.

 

[davidg4781]

Well, you can watch local channels OTA. They are free. An antenna is like $40 these days. But I get what you're saying.

I live too far away. I bought a pretty nice indoor antenna and couldn’t pull any channels. The house isn’t wired for cable so putting an outside one would be a little more costly.

 

[davidg4781]

YouTube TV is pretty good and offers local channels. I've been using it for about 4 months and I love it.

Not local in my area. Hulu is the only one and it’s the same price as my discounted Spectrum.

 

[shinji]

Their service was terrible. Tons of channels, but it buffered nonstop on all devices. Wired to my TV (gigabit service) and it STILL buffered constantly. I switched to YouTube TV.. I never buffer. Literally never.

They did have lots of buffering problems early on. We joined it at launch, and it was quite annoying.

But that's been over for a while now.

 

[nburwell]

They did have lots of buffering problems early on. We joined it at launch, and it was quite annoying.

But that's been over for a while now.

I streamed the entire Super Bowl last night on DTV Now and had not one issue. Now when I'm watching something that I DVR'd, I definitely have the buffering issue quite often (especially after fast forwarding through commercials), which is a minor inconvenience, especially when we have 100/100mbps Fios internet.

 

[cocky jeremy]

They did have lots of buffering problems early on. We joined it at launch, and it was quite annoying.

But that's been over for a while now.

Weird. I had it as recently as 4-6 months ago. It never seemed to get any better.

 

[shinji]

I streamed the entire Super Bowl last night on DTV Now and had not one issue. Now when I'm watching something that I DVR'd, I definitely have the buffering issue quite often (especially after fast forwarding through commercials), which is a minor inconvenience, especially when we have 100/100mbps Fios internet.

Weird. I had it as recently as 4-6 months ago. It never seemed to get any better.

I don't know, but we haven't had the problem on live TV in a while. It was a major issue at launch and right after. At that time, the only reason we stuck with them was because PS Vue lost the Viacom channels. Now, the service is pretty reliable for us.

As for the DVR, that kind of sucks in general compared to PS Vue, but we still aren't having the buffering issues there, either. Also 100 mbps down.

 

[cocky jeremy]

I don't know, but we haven't had the problem on live TV in a while. It was a major issue at launch and right after. At that time, the only reason we stuck with them was because PS Vue lost the Viacom channels. Now, the service is pretty reliable for us.

As for the DVR, that kind of sucks in general compared to PS Vue, but we still aren't having the buffering issues there, either. Also 100 mbps down.

Weird. I don't know what the issue was then. Oh well. YouTube TV works for the little I watch.