AT&T said it lost another 886,000 customers in the second quarter across its “premium video” portfolio, a grouping that includes linear pay TV services DirecTV, U-verse TV and AT&T TV.
The attrition represents an acceleration from the 778,000 premium video customers AT&T lost in the second quarter of 2019. It lost 879,000 customers in the first quarter.
AT&T announced across-the-tiers price increases for AT&T TV and DirecTV earlier this month. It is no longer selling U-Verse TV.
The company also reported another 68,000 lost subscribers for its virtual pay TV service, AT&T TV Now, with its base whittled to just 720,000 customers as of the end of June.
AT&T’s revenue from pay TV video was down 13.2% to $7 billion in the second quarter. The company attributed it to the subscriber declines, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on advertising, commercial revenue and “certain fees.”
Last year, ahead of the March national rollout of AT&T TV, company executives expressed hope that the new IP-based service would stem the steady customer losses being experienced by decaying satellite TV brand DirecTV, as well as U-verse, a pay TV product AT&T no longer sells to new customers.
While AT&T TV now certainly hasn’t reversed the company’s linear pay TV fortunes, AT&T does credit it for sales of bundled fiber broadband services—AT&T announced the addition of 225,000 fiber-based high-speed internet customers in Q2.
