AT&T Enters The Streaming Cable Competition
Tomorrow (November 30) the growing market of non-contract, price-reduced cable over the Internet will become a three-horse race. On that day phone giant AT&T will launch DirectTV Now, an off-branch of the DirectTV satellite service it owns. This move would seem like shooting themselves in the foot since the new service is undeniably better and cheaper at the same time, provided you can get Internet from another source.
AT&T has studied the numbers, however, and they’ve concluded if they’re to keep the new generation of humanity from sticking with Netflix and Hulu only, this is a step they have to take.
So now that we have three choices to pick from, let’s size them up. DirectTV Now comes in four pricing tiers, and please forgive me when I pass these names on, because I did not pick them:
- Live a Little – $35 a month, 60+ channels
- Just Right – $50 a month, 80+ channels
- Go Big – $60 a month, 100+ channels
- Gotta Have It – $70 a month, 120+ channels
AT&T totally gets millennials, dude!
We’re not using those names again, so pay attention. Tier 1 contains ESPN, ESPN2, AMC, Animal Planet, A&E, Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, FS1, BBC America, BET, CMT, Lifetime, TNT, TBS, SyFy, Nick Jr, TV Land, FX, FXX, USA, ID, HLN, E!, Discovery, Bravo, Bloomberg, Comedy Central, CNN, NatGeo, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Food Network, History Channel, CNBC, MTV, MTV2, Spike, VH1, TLC, TCM, Bravo, Galavision and Univision. Also the on-demand content from ABC, NBC and Fox, similar to what Vue does.
Tier 2 has all those plus ESPNews, ESPNU, NBCSN, MLB Network, Fox Prime, CNBC World, ESPN SEC, IFC, BTN, Cooking Channel, BTN, Fusion, OWN, Travel, Science, UniMas, Weather Channel, GSN, Comedy.tv and something called “YES.”
Tier 3 contains the content of Tiers 1 and 2 and adds FS2, Golf Channel, NBA TV, DIY, FXM, FYI, Discovery Family, NatGeo Wild, Oxygen, Sundance TV, Tennis Channel, MTV Classic and BBC World News.
Tier 4 has all that plus Boomerang, Chiller, Cloo, El Rey, Starz(eight channels worth), and Univision Deportes.
Now about those prices. They are undeniably the most expensive of the three services available, but DirectTV has a plan to stay competitive, at least for the time being: anyone who signs up during the promotional period will get Tier 3 for the price of Tier 1 — and that will be their price forever as long as they remain on the service. So….should you?
Don’t decide anything yet. Let’s compare all three now and see how they rank up.
- Sling
Offers the lowest price of any service at an entry point of $20 - Sling has El Rey Network on the basic service; DirectTV puts it on the highest tier and Vue doesn’t even have it
- The app is available on more devices than any other service
- The app also sucks; it’s tough to navigate and there are more visual glitches on Sling’s stream than on Vue’s
- Not as many channels, and oddly, having the multi-stream plan gets you different channels than you get with the single-stream plan. There’s no way to get every channel Sling offers at once!
- No DVR, though Sling just announced they are going to add one. Selected customers will be able to beta-test a cloud DVR on the Sling Roku app starting this week. This DVR will let you keep programs for an unlimited span of time, but storage space will top off at 100 hours. At this early stage we can’t tell you if Sling’s DVR will be better or worse than Vue’s.
- Playstation Vue
The price is reasonable, the app is slick and smooth - The only current streaming service with a functional DVR, and it works wonderfully. Just select a show and Vue will record every time that show comes on (and tag the new episodes for you). Space is unlimited, but all shows expire in 30 days. I should mention there was one show that expired in a week for me (Better Things on FX; no idea why it was THAT one).
- None of the channels under the A&E umbrella are there, but those aren’t very good anyway
- They just lost all their Viacom channels because the company demanded a price increase. Vue does not have Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 or Nickelodeon, or any of the spinoffs to some of those. It’s unknown if they’ll ever get them back.
- DirectTV Now
The price is the highest; the app has yet to be tested - On Vue and Sling, adding HBO costs $15 a month. On DirectTV Now it costs $5!
- For the time being, it gives you the most channels for your money. 100 for $35 is pretty nice, but…
- There is no DVR yet. AT&T says they will be adding one in “2017,” but that’s a rather large release window and you could be going without the ability to watch your shows on your own schedule for months. (If you think you can live through it, you can’t.)
- You could wait for the DVR, but then the promotional price could expire by then, making the third tier $60, and you might as well have cable for THAT price….
One final note: we have NO idea what makes Boomerang so important that both Vue and DirectTV Now have it on their highest tiers. It is old reruns from Cartoon Network, and nothing else. It is not worth a hundred bucks. Sling will let you have it for $25.