• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 12, 2020

So is that it DirecTV? AT&T benches its longtime pay TV leader to foster its own nascent AT&T TV operation?

Well, not exactly. But don't expect to see much marketing for the product going forward -- at least, according to John Stanley, president of AT&T. He says in "more rural or less dense suburban areas. In terms of our marketing muscle and our momentum in the market, it will be about software-driven pay-TV packages."

In response, a USA Today headline read: “DirecTV’s days are numbered.”

Sure, it’s great to have a future vision of how the new pay TV world is. We understand no one wants to be left behind. But AT&T has owned DirecTV for just five years — and spent plenty to get it.

Where’s the future? Streaming, OTT and CTV. AT&T will put much effort around AT&T TV, a internet-based pay TV provider; AT&T TV Now, a slimmed down, cheaper on-demand and live, linear TV networks platform; as well the forthcoming OTT platform, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max.

DirecTV has languished, losing more than 1.5 million subscribers this year -- and nearly 4 million since AT&T bought the satellite TV programmers in 2015.

It would be difficult to blame AT&T completely for this.

Just look at Comcast, Dish Network, Charter’s Spectrum and Cox pay TV operations. All have had their share of consistent pay TV losses -- all the while, those companies have been building broadband services, if not more recently wireless phone services.

AT&T now says it will only market DirecTV in rural and some suburban areas -- akin to what HughesNet Gen 5, a high-speed satellite Internet service, has been doing for decades when it comes to rural communities that have had trouble in getting wired broadband into their communities.

Maybe AT&T thinks what Charles Ergen, chairman of Dish Network believes: Satellite pay TV services is a mature market with limited growth, and that a merger of DirecTV and Dish Network, the two large satellite pay TV companies, will finally happen. (Both tried this in 2002 ,but federal regulators shot down that prospective deal.)

Things are different now to be sure, but let's ask the obvious question: Does this seem like a good way to for AT&T to monetize a $67.1 billion valued deal it made just five years ago?  Some might say no.