DirecTV Now is being punished in social media circles and in recent product reviews for technical snafus that have stymied the OTT-TV service in its early days, but AT&T seems pleased with the results it's seeing so far.
DirecTV is “off to a really fast start,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman and CEO, said on the company’s Q4 call Wednesday, later pointing out that U-verse TV, launched in 2007, took about 18 months to get to 200,000 subs.
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Though AT&T’s traditional pay TV base lost 27,000 subs in Q4, the 200,000-plus paid DirecTV subs generated in its first month allowed AT&T’s total video sub base to finish the quarter in the black.
“We’re pleased with the initial results from DirecTV Now, but we’re going to be careful with our expectations,” John Stephens, AT&T’s CFO, said earlier in the call, noting that special promotions and launch pricing helped drive subs to the new service.
