AT&T is reportedly planning to introduce AT&T Watch, a new sports-free live streaming TV service costing $15 per month.
Multiple outlets covering the ongoing antitrust trial against an AT&T-Time Warner merger reported that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson revealed the new service during his testimony on Thursday.
AT&T Watch will debut in coming weeks, according to Washington Post reporter Brian Fung.
The service will be available to any wireless or broadband customer, but will be free to AT&T wireless subscribers, according to Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche. The firm believes AT&T’s ultimate goal is to upsell those customers to costlier plans once they become used to the service and desire more offerings.
“While T has offered discounts for DTV Now to wireless users, the content package it offers (with the exception of HBO) not been free to T subscribers. If successful, we believe this could put more pressure on the other three [major] wireless carriers … to act in a more formal way in the content space,” Fritzsche wrote in a research note Friday.
CNN pointed out that AT&T alluded to its plan for a low-cost service that would be free to wireless customers in a pre-trial brief.
“The merger will enable AT&T to transform the mobile video marketplace by combining Time Warner’s content assets with its wireless platform to develop new and more valuable services especially for mobile video devices,” the brief said. “For example: AT&T would launch a new service with Turner and a small number of popular cable networks, which would be made available for free to AT&T’s wireless customers on unlimited plans and for a nominal price to anyone else.”
By coming in at $15 per month and eschewing sports content, AT&T Watch would compete against Philo’s $16 per month entertainment-focused OTT TV service. Philo’s 37-live-channel lineup includes A&E, HGTV, IFC, TLC and Viceland.
AT&T hasn’t detailed what content would be offered on the new service, though it would cost significantly less than its OTT TV service DirecTV Now, which starts at $35 per month.
