
AT&T to lose 1.1M TV subscribers as DirecTV continues nosedive - pseudolus
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/att-expects-to-lose-another-1-1-million-tv-subscribers-this-quarter/
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jpeg_hero
This pleases me.

I was a long-time DTV subscriber that recently cut the cord. It was a total
pain, but I am now glad I did it and should have done it years ago.

What finally pushed me over the edge was a change DirecTV made. One day when
you paused a program you were watching on your DVR, instead of showing a
screensaver they’d show an ad for a Directv PPV movie. I have a bunch of
movies on iTunes, I will literally never buy a movie on DTV. No way to disable
it.

Something about the sheer stupidity of forcing an ad on someone who pays $200
a month (and knows they are overpaying) for a “premium” experience an ad for
something they will literally never buy. It was just infuriating beyond
belief.

I knew I would never be able to talk sense or get my voice heard at such a
huge company. And I knew people would never cancel in large enough numbers
that they got the message. But I cancelled anyways, pushed to do it, and glad
I did.

But it did make me a hater to root against them. And so I am glad to hear that
this decision among others is finally getting through to them.

Now I think I just need a home visit from one of the core developers of
YoutubeTV to come and explain how I am supposed to use their dumb app and why
they couldn’t make it like every other DVR in the past 20 years :)

~~~
Sylamore
[https://www.xandr.com/](https://www.xandr.com/) \- expect more of that type
of ad insertion, as they are investing heavily in becoming a bigger player in
advertising due to the content they now control.

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njarboe
I was a DirecTV subscriber for many years. Their customer service was great.
After the AT&T acquisition customer service quickly declined to the horrible
low level I had with other AT&T services and canceled. This pushed our
household into the streaming world which has its own problems (and are getting
worse quickly).

~~~
Sylamore
When AT&T acquired us, they spent a lot of time selling us on the story that
the customer service level would be maintained because they recognized it as
one of the elements that set DTV apart from other providers.

When it was only a matter of months before the senior DTV leaders all
announced their various retirements (after several having been placed in
charge of AT&T areas), we knew it was only a matter of time.

Recently (in the last 45 days) AT&T has outsourced significant portions of
their IT and finance and billing operations, on top of the already outsourced
IT and customer service functions.

Now with them also having to fend off a very persistent activist investor I
expect their focus to drift even more away from what the customer wants.

