AT&T’s DirecTV Now launched with lots of positive ballyhoo at the end of November, but reports and tweets are piling up about technical glitches and outages. The live streaming service mainly targets cord cutters and cord nevers, but consumers disgruntled with traditional pay TV providers are not going to have much more patience for spotty service than anyone else does. Last week’s problems DirecTV Now experienced with its live stream have been garnering more attention from industry watchers, not to mention jabs from competitors.
TVPredictions.com suggested in an analysis piece this weekend that DirecTV Now “has hit the iceberg” and could be losing some of the goodwill the media has offered the new service. “In addition to the four major outages (four that we know of; there could be more), DirecTV Now subscribers are frequently met with error codes when they try to watch a channel,” Phillip Swann writes at TVPredictions. “That is, if they are permitted to log on.”
Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV, took a swing via Twitter last week after DirecTV posted a “Friday the 13th” reference suggesting people should stay away “from lakes … cabins … the woods.” Lynch quipped they should also steer clear of DirecTV Now.
Many customer complaints posted on Twitter are quickly followed by recommendations from DirecTV Now that users uninstall and reinstall the app. That suggestion is not going over with some.
The Verge is also piling on, suggesting DirecTV Now “appears a complete mess,” and many subscribers feel they are paying for a beta service that was not ready for the real world. The Verge also published the following statement from AT&T about the service problems: “With any new technology there are going to be fixes that need to be made. While we understand we still have work to do, overall feedback on DirecTV Now has been very positive. We’re continuously updating the app to provide a better experience for customers. We encourage customers to keep the app updated.”
