Satellite TV provider DirecTV — which
became part of a standalone joint venture of AT&T and TPG Capital as of Aug. 2 — has reduced its free-trial offer for HBO Max from a year to six months.
The new company, called
DirecTV, also includes U-verse and the soon-to-launch DirecTV Stream (renamed
from AT&T TV).
DirecTV’s website now shows three free months of HBO Max being included with its packages, along with three free months of Cinemax, Showtime, Starz and (except
for the Premier package) Epix.
AT&T, which acquired DirecTV in 2015, began offering a full year of no-additional-cost HBO Max in May 2020, as one form of leveraging cross-promotion across
its owned properties.
But AT&T is also in the process of spinning off WarnerMedia to create a new entity with Discovery Inc. That entity will own WarnerMedia’s HBO, as well as Turner
and Warner Bros., but it will have no ownership in the DirecTV service.
In a statement sent to Fierce Video, DirecTV said its premium service trial periods are now consistent across its
packages, adding: “We will keep assessing and adjusting our offers to give our customers more choice and control over any premium service they wish,” a DirecTV spokesperson said in a
statement.