
AT&T Launches WatchTV Skinny Bundle for $15 - fomopop
https://www.fomopop.com/guides/live-tv-streaming/news/att-launches-at-t-watch-skinny-bundle-with-37-channels
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allwein
And once again I have to rant. What is the deal with companies announcing new
products or services without actually having any details on their own
websites?!? They go through all this effort to launch new products, but then
they waste the initial excitement. I hopped over to att.com to find out more
and hopefully order the service to test out and it's nowhere to be found.

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bsagdiyev
That mirrors what I remember of AT&T when I worked as an engineer at the
company they hired to build and run their U-Verse streaming platform before
they shut it down this past year. Very dysfunctional, it feels like a lot of
these new offerings/changes are grasping at straws and [opinion]had the reek
of someone's pet project getting pushed along by someone higher up no matter
how terrible it is[/opinion]

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jedberg
No sports, still doesn't solve the biggest problem for cord cutters today (who
like sports). You still have to go to at least the $35/mo plan for the sports.
Which is still admittedly better than cable.

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paulcole
Yeah I still pay $130/month for Cable TV + Internet just for the sports. And
that's not including Sunday Ticket, WNBA League Pass, etc.

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jedberg
DirecTVNow _does_ have a sports package, you just have to spend $35/mo to get
it.

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paulcole
Yeah, the problem is that I don't cut $35/month off my comcast bill by
eliminating TV. They really have a racket going lol.

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berbec
So now there's streaming under the AT&T umbrella (directvnow) from $15 to $70.
I have the full DirecTVNow package, and it's great. Saves me about $100/month
and removes cable boxes, dvrs etc. They just implemented a 12-hour cloud dvr
built into the app. Very nice service.

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throwbacktictac
12-hour cloud based DVR sounds like a solution for an artificial problem. Do
we really need a DVR for what's basically a on demand streaming service?

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mikhailt
Yes because you can't fast forward during commercials for on-demand content
while you can for DRV'ed content.

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dustinmoorenet
I noticed no ESPN. This might have helped get the price down. Good riddance.

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reaperducer
The problem with ESPN is three-fold.

First, ESPN is expensive. I read in a trade magazine not too long ago that
it's the most expensive cable channel for providers to carry.

Second, it is very hard for television providers to carry ESPN without also
carrying a massive bundle of other marginally-popular ESPN channels that few
people want. This is because some cable channels base their advertising rates
on the number of subscribers, not the number of people watching a program.
Though sometimes it's a combination.

Third, (and this is really the suck) if a television provider provides local
TV channels that are owned by a company that also owns cable channels (Disney,
Kabletown, Cox, etc...) then usually they aren't allowed to carry the local
OTA channel without also carrying a bunch of cable channels the provider
doesn't want.

For example, if a local cable company wants to carry KTRK for its subscribers
in Houston, Disney requires it to also take ESPN and DisneyXd and a bunch of
other unrelated channels, which the local cable company has to then pass the
price of on to its subscribers.

AT&T not providing sports or local channels with its new plan keeps the price
way way down.

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rhizome
_it is very hard for television providers to carry ESPN without also carrying
a massive bundle of other marginally-popular ESPN channels that few people
want. This is because some cable channels base their advertising rates on the
number of subscribers, not the number of people watching a program_

The reason you get all the ESPN "Ocho" channels is because ESPN requires cable
companies to carry them in order to offer ESPN at all. Cable companies _pay
ESPN_ for the privilege.[1]

1\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bidding-
war-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bidding-war-between-
networks-sports-leagues-will-increase-price-of-cable-
tv/2015/01/23/d0cb19f4-9db8-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html)

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intopieces
Are there commercials? If so, it's still too expensive. I will never go back
to paying both money and attention.

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rsingel
This study conflates starting _any_ business with a starting a startup aiming
to raise VC $$ and become a $100M+ business.

I'd venture there are hell of a lot more startups now than there were 15 or 20
years ago.

Other data indicates that the number of folks no longer starting a typical
small business for reasons that are multivariate and its a trend that started
in the 1970s, so has very little to do with Google/FB/Amaz/Apple/MSFT, and
probably much more to do with the change in anti-trust enforcement which
allowed the creation of predatory megacorps like Walmart.

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sudosteph
Checked to see how the lineup compares to the hulu live streaming (which is
admittedly twice the the price), and don't see any reason to switch for me
personally.

Main reasons being: 1\. No FX or FXX (Fargo, Legion, Always Sunny) 2\. No USA
(Mr Robot)

I actually don't care about sports, but being able to watch the east coast
stream of Mr Robot live was actually the reason I signed up for that Hulu live
stream in the first place. Kept it because sometimes CNN or HGTV are decent
background noise.

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mikhailt
Be careful if you're already on ATT unlimited plans, they remove stuff like
HBO for life if you "upgrade" to %More, which is 5$ more a month as well.

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fomopop
Yeh, I asked them this question. While you lose HBO for life, you do get a
choice of HBO, Showtime, Starz,Amazon Music Unlimited, or Pandora Premium
instead.

The only reason that you wouldn't want to update is if you signed up for their
Unlimited Plan when they were giving $25 off DIRECTV NOW, DIRECTV, or AT&T
U-Verse.

In that case, you wouldn't get AT&T WatchTV, but you would get a much more
comprehensive DIRECTV NOW package + HBO for $10/mo.

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scarface74
What’s old is new again. This is similar to Sprint’s Powervision
offering...from 2005.

[https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1880163,00.asp](https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1880163,00.asp)

It worked decently well on the high end feature phones of the day. You could
get 15-20 FPS.

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phjesusthatguy3
It's not launched if you can't buy it, and I can't find a link to buy it.

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donclark
Maybe these guys are related to the offering?
[https://www.mobitv.com](https://www.mobitv.com)

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pascalxus
it's still 5$ more than netflix. And, i don't this whole tv stuff well enough,
but is this that channel programming nonsense, where shows come on at a
specific time and you have to watch it at that time? or is it normal, where
you can watch any show anytime?

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chaostheory
If you have an Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV, you can login to each cable channel
app that you want to watch. There are commercials but it is still better than
live TV streams. Until I got cable TV again from Comcast, in order to get
internet service that was both cheaper and faster (300 -> 400 MBPS at $30 less
including cable TV); I didn't understand Apple's TV app and why it exists. I
now understand the TV app. Before I couldn't be bothered to even use it. If
you want something seamless after having activated all those cable TV apps,
use the Apple TV app.

Why does Comcast offer internet and cable TV bundles cheaper than just
internet service? To pad the numbers for cable subscribers of course.

