AT&T-owned DirecTV is prepping another round of price increases that will kick in early next year for subscribers to its satellite television service.
Beginning January 19, DirecTV video service packages will increase their monthly rates by between $1 (Basic Choice) and $8 (Premier). Other packages that will be more expensive include: Mas Latino, Optimo Mas and Preferred Choice, all going up by $3; Select, Select Classic, Select Choice, Entertainment and Entertainment Classic, all going up by $4; Choice, Total Choice, Total Choice Unlimited, Mas Ultra and Familiar Ultra, all going up by $5; and Choice Xtra Classic, Preferred Xtra, Xtra and Ultimate, all going up by $7.
In addition, certain regional sports network service tiers will see monthly increases between $1.50 and $2.
Minimum service, Family and ChineseDirect Plus packages won’t see their monthly rates increase.
RELATED: AT&T loses nearly 1.36 million video subscribers in Q3
U-verse TV packages are also going up in price. U-family will go up by $3 per month; U200, U200 All In, U200 Latino, U200 Latino All In, U300 and more will go up by $5 per month; and U400, U450 and more will go up by $7 per month. The U-verse broadcast TV fee will also go up by as much as $2 per month.
AT&T said the price increases are happening to cover rising programming costs.
As TVAnswerman points out, the DirecTV price hikes are an annual occurrence. In 2017 prices went up between $2 and $6 per month, in 2018 prices went up between $2 and $8 per month, and in 2019 prices went up between $1 and $8.
While regular price increases are common for most pay TV providers, not all are facing such accelerated subscriber losses as AT&T. The company lost approximately 1.16 million premium video subscribers (DirecTV and U-verse) and lost another 195,000 AT&T TV subscribers for a total of about 1.358 million during the quarter. The losses were dramatically higher than the 297,000 total net subscribers lost in the year ago quarter.
As DirecTV and U-verse video subscriber totals continue to dwindle, AT&T is readying a new streaming TV service, AT&T TV. AT&T TV is currently in beta testing in 15 U.S. markets and AT&T plans to go nationwide with the service in 2020.