DirecTV Now customers are about to see their monthly bills increase.
AT&T has unveiled an across-the-board $10 price hike for customers of the streaming service, alongside two new DirecTV Now packages which include HBO, but will not carry channels from A&E Networks (A&E, Lifetime), Discovery (Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, OWN), Viacom (Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon) or AMC Networks (AMC, IFC, WeTV). The move comes after days of speculation about possible increased fees.
The new prices will go into effect April 12.
It’s the second price increase in under a year for DirectTV Now. Last July, the company bumped its cheapest plan up to $40 per month. It also follows a nationwide outage last October, sparking significant outrage from users, who were especially unhappy about the company’s lack of transparency about the technical issue.
Streaming services like DirecTV Now and Dish Network’s Sling TV are increasingly important for media conglomerates as more and more consumers drop their cable or satellite subscriptions and look for less expensive, a la carte options that they can watch wherever they are via their phones or tablets.
In the last three months of 2018, cord cutters hit record numbers, as the number of pay TV subscribers dropped 4.1% from the previous year. And for the first time in a few years, those losses weren’t offset by number of people signing up for internet TV subscriptions.