DirecTV, AT&T’s struggling satellite TV service, has quietly increased monthly prices for the first year of service across its different channel packages.
TV Answer Man spotted the price hikes, which raised the first-year monthly rates by $10 for new customers on DirecTV’s Select, Choice and Ultimate packages. After the first year of a 24-month service agreement, prices jump to $85/month for Select, $115/month for Choice and $142/month for Ultimate.
As the report points out, the new price increase effectively undoes a $10 price decrease AT&T put in place for DirecTV in 2019. AT&T has also raised first-year prices for its recently launched AT&T TV service. AT&T TV’s Entertainment package now charges $59.99/month for the first year and its Choice package now charges $64.99/month for the first year.
"We offer a variety of promotional initiatives including pricing, reward cards and other offers. We’ve recently increased the introductory rate for new customers on those video products. Our pricing is still in line with others in the industry and reflects our continued commitment to provide high-quality content at a fair price," AT&T Spokesperson Jim Kimberly said in a statement.
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The price increase for DirecTV comes as the satellite provider continues to lose subscribers at an accelerated pace. During the first quarter, AT&T said it lost 897,000 premium video subscribers – from its DirecTV and U-verse services – and another 138,000 AT&T TV Now subscribers, totaling 1.035 million subscribers lost. The decrease was 65.1% more than the 627,000 net subscribers lost in the same quarter of 2019. During the fourth quarter, AT&T lost 945,000 premium video subscribers.
This is also not the first price increase for DirecTV in 2020. Beginning on January 19, DirecTV video service packages increased their monthly rates by between $1 (Basic Choice) and $8 (Premier). Other packages that became 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 saw monthly increases between $1.50 and $2.
This article has been updated to include a statement from AT&T.