A New TV Streaming Service Announced in Court by AT&T CEO - The UpStream

A New TV Streaming Service Announced in Court by AT&T CEO

posted Saturday Apr 21, 2018 by Scott Ertz

A New TV Streaming Service Announced in Court by AT&T CEO

New product and service announcements happen all the time. Often, they are made at trade shows like CES or Collision, at announcement events like Microsoft, Apple and Google, or in a press release. One place where we don't expect to hear about a new product is in a court testimony, though that's exactly what happened this week.

The AT&T/Time Warner acquisition is well known at this point, but just in case you're unaware, AT&T is trying to acquire Time Warner (not Time Warner Cable, which is owned by Charter), but the government is working to prevent the transaction. The Federal Trade Commission has filed a suit to block the merger, which is currently in court.

AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson took the stand this week to explain to the court why the merger of service provider AT&T and content provider Time Warner would not be a harm to customers. As part of his explanation, he announced a new streaming service from the company titled AT&T Watch. This new service will be a streamlined version of DirecTV NOW, another streaming service owned by AT&T. Unlike DirecTV NOW, AT&T Watch will cost $15 per month and will offer a very slim number of channels, which will not include any sports channels (one of the ways they intend to keep the cost down).

Watch was held up as an example of how AT&T is neither afraid of, nor trying to stifle competition in, streaming services. This is a chief concern raised in the FTC suit, as they claim that, if AT&T were to own Time Warner's content and cable channels, it would lead to more expensive cable packages and streaming services for consumers. Stephenson showed that consumers, regardless of their residence, would have another service option to watch this content.

There is no confirmation about whether or not this new service, which is reported to launch in just a few weeks, has any dependence on the successful acquisition of Time Warner. Either way, the launch of another service like this helps negate the longstanding issue with cable providers: choice. In many areas, customers only have one or two choices, but service like AT&T Watch, PlayStation Vue and Sling TV help to fix this, and AT&T Watch will bring something the others don't have: a lower price.

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