AT&T has quietly dropped offering new subscriptions to AT&T Now TV, the erstwhile DirecTV Now online television service aimed at replacing traditional pay-TV and competing with Sling TV, Philo TV, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV, among others.
AT&T Now TV has been replaced by AT&T TV, which offers consumers three programming options priced from $69.99 to $94.99, with the more expensive plans featuring a free year of HBO Max. While the addition of Max might seem intriguing, Now TV was priced from $55, with a $79 option including free access to Max.
“AT&T TV Now packages are no longer available for new customers,” reads the AT&T website.
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Now TV (a.k.a. DirecTV Now) was launched on Nov. 28, 2016, with much fanfare for $35 monthly, quickly adding 200,000 subs by the year’s end. The service topped out at 1.86 million subs in 2018, before losing about 1.2 million subs through Sept. 30, 2020 after AT&T instituted price hikes.
AT&T has now hung much of its digital future on HBO Max, with AT&T TV seen as backstop to ongoing DirecTV and AT&T U-verse pay-TV subscriber declines. U-verse lost about 4 million combined subscribers in 2019.