Quote from Savings Beagle on March 31, 2020, 11:52 am

Are DirecTV's days truly numbered?  And no, I'm not just talking about people's move from traditional cable and satellite TV services to the various streaming alternatives.

Turns out, AT&T itself has decided DirecTV's days are numbered.

Earlier this month, AT&T President and COO John Stankey said at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, “I think, back in July of 2015, after we closed the DirecTV transaction, we (said) that at that point in time that we didn’t see satellite delivery as necessarily a growth vehicle for entertainment moving forward. We like the DirecTV customer base, thought it was attractive. But we felt like the march needed to be to delivering entertainment over software. And shortly after that period of time, we made it clear that we would be developing a software platform that would ultimately not only take our satellite base and offer them a more updated product, but be the replacement for the U-verse space that was already in service and give them the next generation of software-driven TV.”

He went on to say that AT&T TV is now the company’s lead TV product. DirecTV would now be marketed primarily in areas where high-speed Internet service is not easily accessible - think more rural areas of the U.S.

Even this take isn't completely new.  Although it is interesting AT&T U-verse seems to be now joining DirecTV in the "outdated tech" pile.

So AT&T is going full bore toward a streaming product - AT&T TV - as its primary avenue for pay-TV service.

They've tried a few other streaming iterations, which really haven't distinguished themselves from the streaming competition.  Maybe those were just "trial runs" to bring forth the product they hope will be streaming's shining star.

YouTube TV might have something to say about that, I'd think.

And according to reviews of the new AT&T TV, they've still got some work to do.  Even after all their other streaming tries.

But enough about streaming.

It does seem that AT&T will begin paying less and less attention to DirecTV in the coming years.  Does that mean an ultimate sale - to maybe Dish - or an outright phase out of the service altogether?

And, most importantly, what does that mean for those of us who continue to hang on to DirecTV, but want it at a reasonable monthly price?

I wish my crystal ball was working right now so I could provide a definitive answer.  Unfortunately, it's on the fritz from all the coronavirus and economy questions I've been asking it lately.

So I put those questions to you...what do you think will happen to DirecTV over the next few years and how will our ability to get pricing deals be affected?

If you want to read USA Today's article on this, you can do so here "DirecTV's days are numbered."